
Glass _ . 

Book Jy\f lb 



HAND-BOOK 



THE GREEK DRAMA, 



CHAPTER I. 

(ORIGIN OF THE GREEK DRAMA. — IMITATION. — RELIGIOUS 
FEELINGS. NATIONAL CHARACTER. — ERA IN NATIONAL 

| RELIGION. — ANTHROPOMORPHISM. — CONNECTION OF 
GRECIAN ART WITH RELIGION. 

What was the origin of the Grecian drama ? and 
how came it to attain to such perfection in Greece 
alone out of the whole ancient world, and in Athens 
alone among all the states of Greece ? What was 
it in its earliest stage of existence ? By what steps 
was it fostered and developed into maturity ? What 
was its true meaning and spirit ? what its influence 
upon that nation by which it was so tenderly nur- 
tured ? What, in a word, is the history of its rise and 
decay? These are subjects of deep and living in- 
terest alike to the historian, the philosopher, and the 
poet ; and it is to questions such as these that we 
purpose to give some answer in the following pages. 
First, then, as to its origin. It is at once clear 



2 HAND BOOK OF TIIE GREEK DRAMA. 

that we cannot for one moment admit, with Hase 
and other writers, that the mere " love of amuse- 
ment and spectacle " * is a principle of sufficient 
depth and strength to have given birth to the 
Grecian drama. The same, too, may be said of that 
innate "love of imitation"! to which so many phi 
losophical minds, from Plato J down to Copleston§ in/ 
our own day, have been content to refer it. Nor, 1 ] 
again, even if we take a wider view of the term 
{jLi/uLrjaLs, and consider it as equivalent to the t€ love 
of expression " in its broadest sense, as Aristotle || 
and almost all other authors have done, can we 
think that an adequate solution is furnished to our 
question. So neither can we assent to those who 
would regard the ancient drama as devised for the 
special purpose of " moulding the national mind to 
- religion and morality, by purifying and elevating j 
the passions, to which it appeals so forcibly, or who, I 

* Hase's Ancient Greeks, ch. xx. 

f " If a love of imitation and a delight in disguising the real 
person under a mask were the basis upon which this style of poetry 
was raised, the drama would have been as natural and as universal 
among men as these qualities are common to their nature." — 
Miiller, Lit. of Gr., ch. xxi. 

J Plato, Rep. iii. p. 273. § Praelect. Academ., iv. 

|| Poet., ch. i. : eiroiroua 8^ kol\ rj rijs rpaycodlas iroir)ois y ert 5e 
Ku/JLtofiia ical didvpa/uLfioTroiriTiKT] .... iraaai rvyxdvovaiv oticrcu /xt/^o'eis 
-rb avvoXov. What Aristotle meant by the word pa/m-hcreis here, will 
be best understood by comparing the expression in chap, xxiii., 
irepl fihp ovv r?]s TpaycpSias Kal rrjs iv r<fi irparTeiv fiiimrjaeoDS. The term 
pLi/uelo-da:, in this sense, is correctly rendered by the annotators 
" imitando exprimere." Donaldson, however, understands the term 
as equivalent to fiction as opposed to actual facts. Compare Twin- 
ing's Dissertation, pp. 27. 37. 



ITS ORIGIN. 3 

vith Schlegel, would resolve it into "a feeling of the 
lignity of human nature excited by the fortunes of 
the great models exhibited to us/' or to our ability 
" to trace a higher order of things impressed upon 
the ordinary current of events and secretly revealed 
in them." Still less can it be held that a mere " love 
of strong emotions excited in the breast " * is an 
adequate cause of tragic pleasure." 

It is clear, to those who know anything of the 
human heart and human passions, and have also 
studied the religious character of ancient Greece, 
that it is to some far more primary and elementary 
principle of man's moral nature that we must look, 
if we would find that which in reality gave life and 
being to the drama of the Greeks. 

The truth, then, is that, as in fact no historical 
origin can be assigned to the drama in ancient times, 
we are forced to refer it to some inherent principle of 
the human mind. The reader will already have 
anticipated our meaning, when we say that it is the 
religion of ancient Greece, as modified by the con- 
stitutional tendencies of the national and especially 
the Athenian mind, which furnishes the only satis- 
factory answer to our inquiry. 

The prominent feature of religion, as it appears in 
the earliest period of a nation's existence, is, as 
Wachsmiith calls it, a "striving after objectivity," — 
a restless desire to portray the abstract and unseen 

* See M'Dermott's " Philosophical Enquiry it) to the Source of 
Pleasure derived from Tragic Representations," 1S24. 

B 2 



iA 



4 HAND-BOOK OF TIIE GHEEK DRAMA. 

in concrete and visible shapes and forms. Now thi 
strong principle is especially characteristic of th 
more rude and uneducated ages of both national and 
individual existence. And the first idea which 
powerfully seizes upon the mind at such periods, is 
the idea of Deity, as recognised in his attributes of 
power, goodness, and wisdom, and in the outward 
manifestations of the natural world. 

Now, if this, as a matter of fact, be true of nations 
in general, it will be found to hold good in a still 
more striking degree of the Hellenic nation. From 
the earliest times their "singular impatience of pure 
thought,"* their love of marvel and of fiction, to- 
gether with their lofty aspirations after the beautiful 
and the true, and the keenness of their religious 
susceptibilities, have marked out their race from the 
rest of mankind as religious and poetical in the very 
highest decree. Their intense love of the fine arts 
lent a very powerful assistance to their efforts to 
realise the unseen world ; and from being; thus con- 
nected with the all-absorbing theme of religion, the 
fine arts, in their turn, received an impetus in 
Greece which was unknown elsewhere. To the 
religious principle, then, is to be ascribed the early 
progress which was made by them in poetry, in 
painting, in architecture, and in music, as being 
so many obvious methods in which their yearning 
after the unseen Deity found its natural outward 
expression. Here, then, in that same principle 

* Donaldson's Theatre of Greek's, ch. i. ta 



ITS ORIGIN. 5 

which peopled every wood, and fountain, and hill of 
Hellas with beings more than mortal, in the in- 
fluence of a polytheistic religion upon the Hellenic 
mind, — here do we find the key that unlocks to us 
the origin and antiquity of the Grecian drama. 
Their wide-spread anthropomorphism *, their love of 
representing the unseen Deity under the human 
form, though with features and proportions of ideal 
beauty, was the true parent of the drama. Hence 
came the earliest efforts of the Greeks in archi- 
tecture, poetry, and music, as necessary to supply 
the personal Deity with a worthy temple, and to 
celebrate his praises in befitting strains. Hence 
Strabo says that " the whole province of poetry is 
the praise of the Gods ; " f and hence the word hymn 
(vfjbvos) has retained even down to our own days 
that distinctive meaning which points out its original 
connection with religious worship. 

Poetry, then, at first, was the mere organ, or 
rather the handmaid, of religion. But of what kind 
of religion ? " We shall see. In every nation \ the 
religious mind passes through several successive 
stages. At first, the innate idea of a God predomi- 

* See Coleridge on the Greek Classical Poets, p. 15. (ed. 1834) : 
" The Greeks and Italians, from the earliest times to this hour, have, 
as nations, been contradistinguished from the northern tribes by a 
more sensuous conception of the Divinity, and by a craving after a 
visible and tangible representation of Him on earth." 

f Strabo, x. p. 468. 

% We speak, of course, only of heathen nations. Where a revelation 
has been vouchsafed by God, a very different order of things is to 
be discerned. 

b3 



6 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

nates ; next he is worshipped in his works, that is, in 
the visible objects of nature; polytheism is the next 
stage in the religious development of the national 
belief; then, as intelligence advances, and as the 
laws of nature begin to be understood, the mind 
ascends from a worship of the objects of nature to the 
worship of those powers which direct its course : and 
the step from the worship of powers of a material 
kind to that of powers of a spiritual kind is easy 
and obvious. "In the earlier periods of Grecian 
polytheism, the former worship prevailed ; the latter 
at a subsequent period. The early deities of Hel- 
lenic worship are the children of earth, and sky, and 
ocean. In a word, the Saturnian gods of the elder 
mythology are the deified powers of nature $ while 
in the mythology of the later poets and philosophers, 
it is spiritual power that rules the world from the 
top of Olympus, and the inferior deities are the 
spiritual faculties of man personified and embellished. 
. . . . Anthropomorphism takes the place of 
a deification of nature ; the popular gods are invested 
with personality, and have a common origin with 
their worshippers ; they are born, bred, and nursed 
like men, but immortal still. They preside over 
each department of nature, and each province of 
art. Dis rules over the abodes of the departed, 
Posidon over the ocean, Zeus over the land and sky. 
One divinity wakes into life the olive and the corn ; 
another has charge of the vine. One guides the day, 
from his chariot with golden wheels ; a sister deity 
walks in brightness through the sky by night. A 



ITS ORIGIN. 7 

fountain in the shade, a brook leaping down the 
hills ; a sequestered vale fringed with trees, a lonely 
mountain walled in with savage rocks, — each is the 
residence of a god. The arts, too, have their patron 
deities. Phoebus Apollo inspires the poet and the 
artist ; the Muses, daughters of Memory and Zeus, 
fire the bosom from the golden urn of truths Ares 
has power in war ; a divinity presides over agricul- 
ture, the work of the weaver, the flocks of the shep- 
herd, and every art of life." * Every nation, city, 
and family, has its peculiar god — its Zeus, its 
Athena, or its Hera; but all are not of equal might, 
and One is king over all, though subject himself to 
the supreme power of unalterable Destiny or Fate."| 
This, then, it would seem, is the stage of national 
existence and religious belief during which a nation's 
poetry is exclusively devoted to the service of re- 
ligion. And it was precisely during this period in 
Grecian history that the drama rose into importance 
and flourished most vigorously ; just as it is from the 
era of the sophists and of the school of irreligious 
freethinkers who broke up the system of national 
faith at Athens, in order to introduce deities of a 
more subtle and philosophic kind, J that we may date 
the decay and downfal of Grecian religion and 
Grecian poetry alike. 

* Parker on Religion, ch. v. 

f Herod, i. 91. rty TTeKpwfxiviqv fiolpav a^vvarov icrn a-irocpvyisiv koX 
6e$. See Baehr's remarks on this subject, Comment. 12. ; and com- 
pare Msch. Prom. Vinct. 515—518. (Dind.) 

i See the chapter on Euripides, below. 

b4 



b HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

We have already mentioned the sister arts of 
music, architecture, and painting, as constituting, 
together with poetry, the handmaids of religion in 
Greece. We have also seen how closely religion 
was interwoven with the very life of the Greek. 
But, in any inquiry into the origin of the Grecian 
drama, it would be scarcely fair to take no notice of 
another cause which concurred to produce it. We 
mean, of course, the social character of the national 
mind, and especially its gay and joyous disposition, 
its power of sympathy, and the exquisiteness of its 
taste for refined and intellectual pleasure. These 
found their fullest development and satisfaction in 
the splendour of those religious festivals which 
brought the nation together at stated periods of the 
year. " Gay and brilliant as the over-arching skies, 
the Greeks, from the first dawn of civilisation, had 
loved to meet together for festal enjoyment — the 
dance, the song, the games. Nature, prodigal in 
all things to these her darling children, had implanted 
in them so exquisite a taste and so great mental 
activity, that the intellectual occupation and excite- 
ment which give durability and soul to pleasure 
were indispensable even amidst the throng and 
tumult of their gayest assemblies. Joyousness was 
acceptable to the gods; and joyous sports charac- 
terised all the festivals which the gods had instituted 
while on earth, in their tender sympathy with human 
enjoyment. The god being propitiated by prayer 
and sacrifice, man rested from his labours, and the 



ITS ORIGIN. 9 

holiday was kept with gaiety and animation." * 
There was an ioprrj, which was celebrated with the 
song and the dance ; and even when this rude and 
primitive form of the festival was raised into the 
greater solemnity of a religious spectacle, these more 
dignified and refined assemblies still retained their 
characteristic gaiety and cheerfulness. And especially 
was this the case with the susceptible Athenians, in 
whose breasts the religious element and the sense of 
the beautiful prevailed with so much greater vigour 
than in those of their Dorian brethren, thus leading 
them proportionably to consecrate to the love and 
worship of God the best and fairest productions of 
art and genius. It was doubtless in a spirit, not of 
reproof, but of refined sympathy, that St. Paul, at a 
far later period of history than that to which we 
now refer, alluded to the religious tendencies of the 
Athenian mind, when he spoke to the assembly on 
the Hill of Marsf ; and it was this peculiar feature of 
the national character which developed the drama at 
Athens to an extent unknown in the other cities of 
Greece. 

* Hase's Ancient Greeks, ch. viii. 

t Acts xyii. And compare the remarks of Conybeare and 
Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, vol. i. p. 406. and note. 



10 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 



CHAR II. 

EPIC, LYRIC, AND DRAMATIC POETRY OF GREECE. THE 

RHAPSODISTS ORIGIN OF THE LATTER FROM THE 

WORSHIP OF BACCHUS.- — DORIC FORM OF TRAGEDY. — 

WORSHIP OF APOLLO. THE DITHYRAMB. WORSHIP 

OF BACCHUS. — LYRICAL DRAMA. 

The highest energies of the Grecian mind, as we 
have said, were devoted to the worship of the gods 
from the very earliest times. At first, doubtless, 
this worship consisted, as Miiller remarks *, " chiefly 
in mute motions of the body and symbolical gestures, 
and in broken ejaculations expressive of the inward 
feelings of the worshippers." The first outpourings 
of poetry were simple songs, which supplied these 
same excited feelings with a more appropriate form 
of expression. Songs, relating to the various seasons 
of the year at which each festival occurred, gave a 
natural expression to the religious feelings which 
these seasons called forth, — the periods of the harvest 
and the vintage being celebrated by songs of joy and 
gladness, while the rites of Demeter and Cora, and 
possibly of Dionysus, falling in the winter, as 
naturally suggested, in a worship mainly directed to 
the phenomena of outward nature, the song of 
wailing and lamentation for the departed brightness 

* Literature of Ancient Greece, ch. iii. 



EARLY GREEK POETRY. 11 

and splendour of summer days. These, at first, 
were sung wildly and irregularly, as also were the 
glad hymengeal, and the paean of Apollo, and the 
mournful threnos, and the dirge called by the name 
of Linus. It is uncertain how far they were extem- 
porised, and how far they consisted of a traditional 
form of words. One form of expression, which the 
worship of the gods more especially employed, was 
that of the dance ; and the chorus, of which we shall 
hear so much hereafter, so far from having anything 
to do with music, was originally the level space set 
apart in towns for sacred dances and other public 
festivities.* By a common figure of speech, the 
term was afterwards applied to the body of youths 
and maidens who, hand in hand, performed their 
graceful and expressive dance round the citharist. 
The latter, seated in the midst, sang some lay of the 
gods or heroes, accompanying himself upon the cithara 
or phorminx, and was said u to begin the song 
and the dance," f because the chorus danced in concert 
with his measures, regulating their gestures and 
motions in accordance with the subject of the song. 
A choral dance of this kind, such, for instance, as 
that described by Homer as worked by Vulcan upon 
the shield of Achilles, was in fact a kind of hypor- 
cheme ; that is, one in which the action described by 

* XopSs is, etymologically, the same word as x^P 0S > Hence the 
Homeric expression Xgiclivgiv x°P^, to level or prepare a place for 
dancing ; and x°P° v ^ e l^vai, to join the dance : and hence cities 
having spacious squares are called evpvxopoi. 

f fjLoXirijs Qapxtw, Horn. II. r/viii. 606. 



u 



10 



12 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

the song was at the same time outwardly expressed 
with mimic gestures by certain individuals, who came 
forward for that purpose from the body of the chorus. 
This description of choral dance, though probably in 
early times it was very generally in use, never occurs 
in later periods, except in connection with the worship 
of Apollo ; and to it we shall have occasion to return 
hereafter. 

We have mentioned the citharist, and the lays 
which he sang at the festivals of the gods when 
seated in the midst of the choral troop, as affording 
the earliest vestiges of the choral element of the Greek 
drama. To trace the rise of the other element, the 
dialogue, our readers must now transfer themselves 
in mind from the worship of the gods to the feasts 
in the halls of the nobles of the Homeric times. 
They will remember, especially in the Odyssey, 
frequent mention being made of the 6slo$ aoihos, or 
" divine minstrel," who so often charmed the ear of the 
banqueters by the singing, or rather the recitation, of 
lays of gods or heroes. " Though possessing less 
authority than the priests .... still, as servants of 
the Muses, and dedicated to their pure and innocent 
worship, the minstrels were held in peculiar esteem*, 
and always held an important post at every festal 
banquet ; for the song and the dance were the chief 

* Thus Ulysses, at the massacre of the suitors, respects the 
person of Phemius their aoiBSs (Odyss. viii. 479. and xxii. 
344.); and it was to his faithful minstrel that Agamemnon en- 
trusted his wife during his expedition against Troy. (Odyss. iiL 
267.) 



EARLY GREEK POETRY. 13 

ornaments of the feast, and were reckoned the highest 
pleasure by the nobles of the Homeric age." * The 
songs or lays which they sang were the first rudi- 
ments of the epos, the connection of which with the 
tragic dialogue we shall afterwards have occasion to 
explain. 

The connection, then, between epic poetry and 
the banquets of the nobles, was of very ancient date 
in Greece ; and, from being made so much a part of 
their social life, the epos lasted down to a period 
much more recent than the Trojan war, and only 
perished with the downfal of the ancient monar- 
chies. The spirit of epic poetry was strictly monar- 
chical, and wholly opposed to the enthusiastic spirit 
of civil freedom which in aftertimes became the 
master principle of the Hellenic mind. f* It is clear," 
observes Miiller, " that the Homeric poems were 
intended for the especial gratification of princes, not 
of republican communities .... and though Homer 
flourished some centuries later than the heroic age, 
which appeared to him like some distant and mar- 
vellous world, from which the race of man had 
degenerated both in bodily strength and courage, 
yet the constitutions of the different states had not 
undergone any essential alteration, and the royal 
families, which are celebrated in the Iliad and the 
Odyssey, still ruled in Greece and in the colonies of 
Asia Minor. To these princes the minstrels naturally 
turned, for the purpose of making them acquainted 

* Miiller, Literature of Greece, ch. iv. 



10 

14 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

with the renown of their forefathers ; and whilst the 
pride of these descendants of heroes was flattered, 
epic poetry became the instrument of the most 
various instruction, and was adapted exclusively to 
the nobles of that age." * 

But the recital of epic poetry was customary, at 
least as early as the time of Homer, not only at the 
feasts of the nobles, but also at those poetical con- 
tests which formed part of the proceedings at public 
festivals. Those who entered these poetical contests 
were called rhapsodists (patytpBol), f a term which 
seems gradually to have superseded the Homeric 
name of bards (aoihoi). As the term itself denotes, 
these rhapsodists recited continuous portions of their 
epic lays with an even and continuous flow, though 
probably in a sonorous recitative approaching to a 
high-pitched chaunt, with some simple and expressive 
modulations of the voice, and without any musical 
accompaniment. J The poems which these rhapso- 
dists recited were doubtless partly their own, and 
partly borrowed from traditional sources; but in 
either case, as the use of letters had not yet been in- 

* Miiller, Literature of Greece, ch. iv. f Ibid. 

X The phorminx was used in the introduction (avafioXii), and 
merely served to give to the voice the necessary pitch. ** In the 
present day," says Miiller, " the heroic lays of the Servians, who 
have most faithfully retained their original character, are delivered 
in an elevated tone of voice by wandering minstrels, after a few in- 
troductory notes, for which the gurla, a stringed instrument of the 
simplest construction, is employed." — Lit. of Greece, ch. iv. This 
description is identical with that which a great noble of the Homeric 
age in Greece wolild give of a rhapsodical recitation of his own 
day. 



RHAPS0D1STS. — CHORUS. 15^ 

troduced, they must have been entirely lecited from 
memory. It is almost needless to add that their 
recitation, from first to last, was chaunted in hexa- 
meter verse, since that was the only regular form 
assumed by poetry, whether of the epic or of the 
lyric school, until at least the 7th century B.C. 

But while the lays of bards and rhapsodists were 
thus cheering the festive halls of princes and nobles, 
and laying the foundation of the tragic dialogue, a 
parallel development was taking place in the lyric 
chorus ; and of this it is time to take notice. We 
have already shown that the dance, and not singing 
or music, was the province of the chorus, and that 
the latter was always connected, from the earliest 
3S, with the worship of the gods, and especially of 
Apollo. Now, at all events in historic times, Apollo 
was the distinctive god of the Dorian race ; and ac- 
cordingly it was in the Doric states of Greece that 
the chorus first assumed a position of importance. 
Apollo was at the same time also the god of music 
and the god of war. The leading feature of a Dorian 
state was its military organisation. To this end 
every separate portion of the system was made to 
contribute ; to it all education and every civil insti- 
tution were referred ; and accordingly we find that, 
among the Dorians, the chorus too was intimately 
connected with it. " The Dorians' chorus was com- 
posed of the same persons who formed their battle 
array. The best dancers and the best fighters were 
called by the same name (irpyTjJesi); the back rows in 
each were called the light-armed (yfrLXels); and the 



16 IIAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

figures of the dance were called by the same name as 
the evolutions of the army." * This Doric chorus, 
then, whose motions in honour of Apollo were ac- 
companied by the lyre, was the parent of the choral 
element of the Grecian drama. But its style and 
expression was not always uniform and unvaried. 
On the contrary, it employed three different kinds of 
choral dance, each of which was expressive of a dif- 
ferent feeling, namely, the Pyrrhic, the Gymno- 
pcedic, and the Ilyporcheme. Of these the two former 
were, originally at least, more of a gymnastic than 
of a mimetic or expressive character, while the 
latter, as its name implies, was a dance expressing, 
by appropriate gestures, the words of the poem to 
which it was an accompaniment. When, however, 
the worship of Dionysus was introduced at a later 
period, a mimic spirit was infused into the two former 
dances also ; and thus eventually the rapid motions 
of the Pyrrhic, the staid and stately gymnopaedic, 
and the vivid hyporcheme, were developed respec- 
tively into the three corresponding dances of scenic 
poetry, the satiric, the stately Emmeleia of tragedy, 
and the comic. 

But if the chorus was originally devoted to the 
worship of Apollo, how are we to account for its 
connection in later times with that of the Dionysus 
or Bacchus of Athens and the Ionian race ? We 
shall see. The Dorians, when they conquered any 
country, introduced the worship of their own gods, 

* Diet, of Greek and Roman Antiq., Art. " Chorus." See also 
Mailer's Dorians, iii 12. § 10., iv. 6. § 4. 



WORSHIP OF BACCHUS. 17 

but endeavoured at the same time to unite it with 
the religion which they found established in their 
settlements. Thus, even Apollo was not originally 
one of the Dorian gods, but a deity of the Achaean 
race, on whose settlements in Laconia they had 
seized. And just as they naturalised Apollo by 
identifying him with one of their ancestral deities, 
so also they acted in the case of Dionysus. And as 
at Sparta they adored Apollo and a sister deity of a 
cognate name*, just so the ancient Pelasgi in Greece 
and Italy worshipped two equivalent deities under 
the titles of Helios and Selene f, while their de- 
scendants, at a more recent period, adored the very 
same powers of nature under the names of Dionysus 
or Bacchus, and Deo or Demeter. The former of 
these was the sun-god, the latter the moon : viewed 
in another light, the former was the god of fertility 
and generation, and hence of th^ vine ; the latter 
represented the fertile earth, from w T hich the vine 
sprang up. By a further stretch of poetical inven- 
tion, the sphere of his influence was enlarged, not 
only in heaven and on earth, but also in the lower 
w r orld ; hence comes the double, and apparently con- 
flicting, character of his worship, which we shall 
hereafter have to notice. " Bacchus, the bright and 
merry god, is also the superintendent of the black 
Orphic rites. The god of life, he is also the god of 

* Probably Apella ; see Mailer's Dorians, ii. ch. 9. § 2. and notes. 

+ "HAios and 2eAV'/? are connected, like v\f] and Sylva ; Sol and 
(Se) Luna are the same words under another form. — Donaldson, 
Greek Theatre, p. 14. note. 



HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

death. The god of light, he is also the ruling power 
in the nether regions."* 

Such being the double character of Dionysus him- 
self, it is not surprising to find that his worship ex- 
hibited a similar double form. As the god of light 
and life, he was worshipped with mirth and revelry, 
while as an infernal deity his sufferings were loudly 
and impressively bewailed. The worship of such a 
deity must of necessity have been one of mimic ex- 
pression ; and so, " if the sun and the ever-revolving 
lights of heaven were fit emblems and suggestions of 
a heavenly deity, the circling dance of Sileni and 
satyrs round the blazing altar was an obvious copy 
of the original symbols, and an equally apt repre- 
sentation below. The Sileni, or deities of the running 
streams, were the appropriate companions of the 
god, as types of the productive and life-giving ele- 
ment of water, while the satyrs were grotesque 
representations of the original worshippers of the 
god himself, dressed up fantastically in the skin of 
the goat, which they had sacrificed upon his altar as 
a welcome offering. 

Such, then, was the elementary worship of Diony- 
sus or Bacchus ; and when we remember that the 
dances of Bacchus, as well as those of Apollo, were 
military f, and to some extent gymnastic \ , we see at 
once ho\f readily the two separate pairs of deities 
became united at Sparta, and how the worship of 
the one became to some extent merged in that of 

* Donaldson, Greek Theatre, ch. ii. p. 15. 

f Strabo, p. 466. + Paus. iii. 13. 7, 






CHORAL SONG. THE DITHYRAMB. 19 

the other. The choral poetry used in the worship 
of Dionysus among the Ionian race was called the 
dithyramb. It was a wild and enthusiastic strain, 
of a melancholy cast, as may be guessed from the 
fact that it was accompanied by the flute ; and the 
subject of it, according to the consent of the best 
authorities * , was invariably the birth and misfor- 
tunes of the infant Bacchus. This choral song the 
Dorians seized on as a connecting link between the 
two religions, when they adopted the worship of the 
Ionian Dionysus. 

It is with this mysterious dithyramb, of which 
we know so little, that the earliest efforts of tragedy 
are connected. Arion, who so far improved the 
former that he is even said to have been its author, 
is called by the father of history tc the inventor of 
the tragic style." f This expression itself is certainly 
vague and undefined enough ; the best solution, pro- 
bably, is that suggested by Dr. Donaldson, who sug- 
gests that by the rpayuco9 rpoiros is meant the in- 
troduction of satyrs (called o-drvpoL, rlrvpot, and 
rpdyoL) into the dithyramb ; a step which brought it 
nearer to the confines of tragedy. An approximation 
to it was also made by the lyric drama, which took 
the sufferings of Bacchus as its theme, and was 
danced by the cyclic chorus, though it was accom- 
panied by the lyre instead of the flute, and substi- 
tuted staid measures and regular action for the wild 



^o 1 - 



* Plato, de Leg. iii. 700. B. : Aiopvaov yivecis . . . diQvpa^os 
Xeyd/ueuos. 

"f Herod, i. 23. : rpayiKov rpo-rrov evpsTTjs. 

C 2 



j 



20 HAND-BOOK OF TnE GREEK DRAMA. 

and impressive movements of the elder Bacchic 
poetry. After a time the subject of Bacchus was 
dropped, and the lays of other heroes were intro- 
duced in its stead, so that in course of time the di- 
thyramb and the lyric drama may be supposed to 
have coalesced. 

How, then, did this lyrical drama differ from 
tragedy itself? As we learn from Athenseus*, it 
had no regular actors (v7ro/cpLral) 9 as distinct from 
the chorus. But if so, then why was it called a 
drama ? Because it was mimetic, and contained the 
first rudiments of action. A comparison of certain 
passages of Homer satisfactorily shows us that the 
leader or exarchus of this chorus held a very marked 
and important post, and that he not only led off the 
dance itself, but began the song or lamentation with 
which it was accompanied. The exarchus of the 
dithyramb, too, recited the ode in the first person ; 
the chorus danced round the blazing altar to the tune 
of his song ; and before the song began, he played a 
voluntary or prelude, called ^pool/mov or ^ypolfjuov^ — 
the very same term which was applied to his leading 
dance as exarchus. We are now in a position to 
understand the remark of Aristotle f, and of Plato 
too, that tragedy was at first autoschediastic (t. e. 
that it employed extempore effusions), and that it 
was commenced by those who led off the dithyramb ; 
the coryphaeus or exarchus relating short fables in 
gesture or language, or in both, by way of prelude, 

* xiv. p. 630. C. f Poet. ch. iv. 



LYRICAL DRAMA. 21 

and afterwards accompanying the song with corre- 
sponding mimicry. This prelude, it may be here 
observed, returns, though in an altered form, at a 
more advanced period of dramatic art, in the pro- 
logues of explanatory narrative addressed* to the 
spectators in the dramas of Euripides.* 

* See below, ch. viii. 



C3 



■21 IIAND-liOOK OF TIIE GREEK DRAMA. 



CHAP. III. 

RISE OF TROCHAIC AND IAMBIC POETRY. — UNION OF 
DORIAN CHORAL POETRY AND TIIE DITHYRAMB. — RISE 

OF TIIE DIALOGUE., GNOMIC POETS. THE CHORAL 

ELEMENT AND THE DIALOGUE UNITED BY THESPIS. 

TVe have already mentioned the monarchical ten- 
dency of the Homeric poems, and their accommodation 
to that political state of things which lingered in 
Greece, as a tradition of the old heroic times, so late 
as the commencement of the 7th century. The 
republican movement of this period, extending alike 
over Ionian and Dorian nations, not only deprived 
the ancient princes and royal families of their here- 
ditary privileges, but also exercised a very marked 
influence on the character of the national poetry. But 
another feature should also be mentioned : " Of all 
the forms in which poetry can appear," says M tiller, 
" the Homeric poems possess in the highest degree 
what in modern times would be called objectivity; 
that is, a complete abandonment of the mind to the 
object, without any intervening consciousness of the 
situation or circumstances of the subject or, in other 
words, of the individual himself." * This feature was 
henceforth to be reversed in Greece. The ancient 
epic was far from being in favour w T ith those who 

* Literature of Greece, ch. iv. 



EPIC AND IAMBIC POETRY. 23 

yearned for liberty, as having a tendency to keep the 
mind too steadily fixed in contemplation of the former 
generation of heroes. Cotemporary, therefore, with 
the first movements of republicanism, the poet, who 
in the epos was completely lost in his lofty subject, 
comes forth before the people as a man, with thoughts 
and objects of his own ; and gives a free vent to the 
struggling emotions of his soul in poetry of a different 
kind, more suited to the events of everyday life. 

This style of poetry was that which is known as 
iambic. It was originated by an Ionian poet, and 
among citizens of a state just rejoicing in the dawn 
of liberty. While the livelier and tenderer emotions 
of the heart found their fit expression in the elegy, 
which sprang into being about the same period, the 
more vigorous feelings of indignant invective were 
wedded by Archilochus * of Paros to the iambic 
metre, as combining together in the best proportions 
the gravity of poetic diction with the plain lan- 
guage of common life. Henceforth, as might be ex- 
pected, the iambic measure prevailed, f But though 
the epos as a living style had passed away, still the 
exclusive sway which it had exercised over the 
Hellenic mind in early times w r as never wholly 
effaced, so that even in the works of the tragedians 
of the 5th century we can trace an epic and 
Homeric tone. The dramatic poets still continued 

* " Archilochum Pario rabies armavit iambo," — Hor. Acs Poet. 

t It was a modification of the trochaic. See Arist. Poet ch. iv. : 
Ae^ews 5e yzvo/j.ei'ris avrr) 7) (pvcris to oiKelov fxirpov evpe' fxaKuna yap 
KeKTLicbv t&v (j.4rpcoi/ to laixgelov sctti. 

C 4 



1 



24 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

to dcvclope the characters of the Iliad and the 
Odyssey, though they put into their mouths a more 
homely and sententious style, and lowered them from 
lofty ideals and poetical conceptions into real and 
energising personages.* 

The subject of lyric poetry as such scarcely falls 
within the scope of our inquiry ; one or two obser- 
vations upon it, however, are necessary here. It 
would seem to have been characterised by a deeper 
and more impassioned feeling and more impetuous 
tone, than the iambic poetry of Archilochus and his 
followers ; and its effect was heightened by the addi- 
tion of the dance, and by appropriate vocal and 
instrumental music. The lyric poetry of the iEolian 
tribes was almost entirely subjective : it expressed 
the thoughts and feelings of a single mind ; and it 
was recited by a single individual, who accompanied 
himself upon the lyre. But among the Dorian 
tribes the case was far different. At an early period, 
as we said above, it was wedded to the chorus, and 
is, therefore, always known as choral, not as lyric 
poetry. Instead of the individual character of the 
iEolian lyric poetry, the choral poetry of the Dorians 
allied itself with objects of public and general in- 
terest, such as religious festivals, the celebration of 
the gods or heroes of Greece, or of such citizens as 
had gained high renown among their countrymen for 



* Thus the Agamemnon of JEschylus and the Ajax of Sophocles 
are very different characters from what they respectively appear in 
Homer. 



LYKIC POETKY. RISE OF DIALOGUE. 25 

noble deeds and virtuous conduct. As we have 
already shown, it was consecrated from a very early 
period to the worship of Apollo; but at a later 
period, when the traditional lays of antiquity ceased 
to delight, and the people in the ardour of their 
enthusiasm demanded new songs more completely 
expressive of their human feelings, the Dorian poetry 
assumed a double form ; and the union of the sacred 
song and dance, which we described at length in a 
former chapter, became divorced from the school of 
Alcman, Stesichorus, and Simonides. With this 
latter school we have no concern; and we must 
content ourselves, therefore, with referring such of 
our readers as wish for further information to the 
very full and satisfactory account of it which is 
given by Miiller in his " Literature of Greece," 
chap. 14., and also in his "Dorians," b. iv. ch. 7. 

Meantime the Dorian choral poetry, as we showed 
in the previous chapter, united the worship of 
Dionysus with that of Apollo, and employed the 
dithyramb as its chief medium of expression. The 
leader of the dithyramb came by degrees not only 
to recite a prelude, but to maintain with the rest of 
the chorus a rude kind of dialogue. This, probably, 
at first was but an extempore effusion of wit, either 
grave or sportive, according to the twofold character 
of the god himself, to which we have already 
alluded. Such were the rudiments of the dialogue 
in its earliest infancy. 

In order, however, to ascertain the actual steps by 
which it grew into its full proportions, and became 



26 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

such as we meet with it in the existing works of the 
Greek tragedians, we must for a time return to the 
payfrcp&ol, of whom mention was made in the preceding 
chapter. 

Before the heroic ages had fairly passed away, 
the warlike lays of Homer, sung at festivals by 
the rhapsodists, were succeeded in their turn by the 
gnomic and didactic poetry of Hesiod — a nearer 
approach to the subjects of every-day life. As the 
moral sentiment increased, w^e cannot doubt that the 
musical accompaniment was gradually laid aside ; 
and when this was done, no step was easier than to 
exchange the lofty hexameter, as was done in the 
time of Archilochus, for a metre better adapted to 
the expression of maxims and apophthegms. The 
metre adopted was at first the trochaic; but afterwards 
this was superseded by the iambic*, as being far 
better adapted to action and feeling than its pre- 
decessor, of which it was, in fact, a very simple 
variation. Like the old hexameters, these trochaic 
and iambic verses were written for recitation ; and 
we are told by Athenaeusf that they were recited 
in public, and acted also. As the profession of a 
rhapsode was popular and profitable, the numbers of 
the body increased ; and when many of them were 
present at a time, it was an obvious improvement to 
assign to several rhapsodes the several portions of 
one poem, so that the whole poem was often recited 

* This metre is called by Aristotle (Poet. ch. iv.) irdi'Toov ixd\i<T7a 
AgktlkSv. See note above, p. 23. 
f xiv. p. 620. C. 



GNOMIC POETRY. THE DITHYRAMB. 27 

at a single feast. Here was a still nearer approxi- 
mation to the tragic dialogue ; for, in the case of an 
epic poem like the Iliad, " if one rhapsode recited 
the speech of Achilles, in the first book, and another 
that of Agamemnon, we may be sure that they per- 
formed their parts with all the action of stage- 
players."* 

That the verses of the gnomic poets were the in- 
termediate step between the school of Hesiod and of 
the tragedians themselves, and afforded a model to 
the iambic writers of the succeeding age, is a fact 
which is established by the paraphrases of Theognis, 
Archilochus, and others, quoted by Donaldson and 
other writers as occurring in JEschylus and Sopho- 
cles. The same sentiments are frequently repeated, 
and often in almost the self-same words. The ex- 
archus or leader of the dithyramb, as is clear from 
Aristotle f, employed the trochaic tetrameter as the 
vehicle of his speech ; he was, therefore, to all 
intents and purposes a rhapsode, and fell short of 
being a real actor {yiroicpiTYis) in the strictest sense 
only from carrying on no regular dialogue. Now it 
is observed by Aristotle, that " tragedy arose from 
the exarchi of the dithyramb." % But the dithyramb 
contained in it the twofold elements of recitation and 
of gnomic poetry, which had long been approaching 
the form of a regular dialogue, and readily united 
with the Dionysian goat-song, which had already 

* Donaldson Greek Theatre, p. 33., ed. 1836. 

f See Poet. ch. vi. 

J airb toov i^apxoproov rbp BiOvpa/xSov. — Poet. eh. iv. 



28 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA, 

assumed, as wc have shown above, the form of a lyric 
tragedy. " The two parts were ripe for a more 
intimate connection ; each of them had within itself 
the seeds of an unborn drama, and they only needed 
blending in order to be complete." * 

Thespis, of the Attic demus of Icarius, is the 
person who is traditionally reported to have united 
these two elements together. It is possible, indeed, 
that the name of Thespis may not, after all, denote 
a real personage, as it is the usual Homeric epithet 
of the bard f , and may, therefore, only point to the 
aoedic or rhapsodic origin of tragedy. But if this be 
not the case, in other words, if Thespis really lived, 
it is to him that all antiquity ascribes the important 
office. His birth-place was an ancient seat of the 
worship of Dionysus ; and he was one of the Dia- 
crians who supported the faction of Pisistratus. 
The Diacrians had succeeded to the religious and 
political ties of the caste of ^Egicores, or old Pelas- 
gian goat-herds, w T ho worshipped their patron deity 
Dionysus with the sacrifice of goats. The .ZEgicores, 
at an early period, were reduced to a condition of 
vassalage by their Ionian conquerors; but in the 
course of time, as the spirit of freedom increased, 
they gained the full privileges of citizens. Emanci- 
pated from political degradation, they naturally as- 
cribed their delivery to their patron deity Dionysus 
or Bacchus, and worshipped him under the title of 

* Donaldson, Greek Theatre, p. 35. No argument could be more 
conclusive. t S*°' 7rLl ' aotiSv. 



UNION OF BACCHIC WORSHIP AND RHAPSODES. 29 

Eleutherus.* From that day forth the god became 
the object of peculiar honour among the Athenian 
commons; it was therefore both politically and 
religiously the interest of Pisistratus to foster the 
Bacchic worship. Now the dithyramb and the Dorian 
choral worship had been introduced into Attica at 
an earlier period by command of the Delphic oracle f ; 
and the recitation of epic poems was of old an esta- 
blished custom at Brauron in Attica, where, at the 
noisy and mirthful festival of the Brauronia |, rhap- 
sodes came forward in succession, and recited verses 
in honour of Bacchus. 

Hence, then, we can see how easily and naturally 
the w r orship of Bacchus, with its Dorian accompani- 
ment of choral dance and song, allied itself with the 
rhapsodic recitations in Attica. The political cir- 
cumstances connected with the ascendancy of Pisis- 
tratus doubtless gave a powerful impetus to both 
elements, and especially to the latter ; and Thespis, 
who was both an actor and a rhapsodist, is the person 
whose name (as we said above) has come down to us 
as the author of the important union of the twofold 
element. Appearing himself as an actor, he could 
scarcely have confined himself to mere narration; the 
majestic simplicity and heroic grandeur of the old 
epic style was now a bygone thing; the iambic 
metre demanded something more homely, more phi- 
losophic, more true to nature. Accordingly, what 

* The same as Liber, the Free-er. 

f See Pausan. i. 2. 5. 

% Arist. Pax, 874. and Schol. 



30 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

more obvious than to address his speeches to the 
chorus, of which he was the leader, and which, by 
means of its coryphaei, could sustain a sort of dialogue 
with him? It is possible that these speeches may 
have been at first extemporised, as is distinctly 
asserted by Aristotle*, when we consider the rude 
nature of the company who were gathered at the 
festival to be amused as well as to be instructed, and 
the ready wit of the Ionian race in matters which 
lay so near to the national heart; but it is almost 
certain that these offhand effusions must speedily 
have given way to something of a more fixed and 
settled form, and that the dialogue before long must 
have been composed and committed to memory.f 

* Poet. ch. iv. 

t A further question, with respect to the plays of Thespis, has 
been started in modern times, as to whether their real character was 
satiric or not. The former opinion has been maintained by no less 
an authority than that of Bentley himself, who gives it as his opinion 
that the plays of Thespis were all of a ludicrous kind, and that 
Phrynichus and iEschylus were the first introducers of grave and 
lofty subjects on the stage. But the voice of antiquity is decidedly 
against such an opinion, so far as it can be ascertained ; and the 
arguments adduced in its refutation by Dr. Donaldson are complete. 



EARLIEST GREEK TRAGEDIANS. 31 



CHAP. IV. 

THE EARLIEST GREEK TRAGEDIANS. THESPIS — CHCERILUS. 

PRATINAS. PHRYNICHUS. THE SATYRIC DRAMA. 

It is now time that we should say something con- 
cerning those tragedians at Athens whose early- 
efforts paved the way for the tragedy of JEschylus 
and Sophocles. It is agreed on all hands, as we 
said in the last chapter, that Thespis was the first 
who was acknowledged as a tragedian at Athens. 
We may not, indeed, be able to go so far as to assert 
with Horace, that tragedy before his time was ab- 
solutely " unknown," any more than we can accept 
as true the account which states that the poems or 
plays of Thespis were carried about the country in 
rustic waggons*,- — a fact which, however true it may 
be of the earliest efforts of comedy, as we shall 
hereafter see, is incompatible with the ascertained 
origin of tragedy, and with the dances executed by 
the dithyrambic chorus round the altar of Bacchus. 
But we cannot reject the unanimous testimony of 
both Greek and Latin authorities, who are explicit 

" Ignotum tragical genus invenisse camoenae 
Dicitur, et plaustris vexisse poemata Thespis, 
Quae canerent agerentque peruncti fsecibus ora." 

Ars Poet. 1. 275. 
The emendation of Bentley, who purposes to read "qui" for 
" qua?,' 1 is worth consideration. 



32 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

in stating that Thespis of Icarius, the Diacrian 
partisan and supporter of Pisistratus, first caused 
tragedy to become a drama properly so called; 
although we have on the other side even the great 
name of Bentley, who argues, in his Dissertations* on 
the letters of Phalaris, that some efforts were made 
in the tragic art before his time. 

In the first place the Arundel marble, whose 
antiquity carries us up to the year B.C. 260, declares 
that Thespis was the first f who gave being to 
tragedy. Next, the epigram of Dioscorides ex- 
pressly asserts of tragedy, that it was the device of 
Thespis $; and another ancient epigram is preserved, 
which runs as follows : — 

Seams 6'5e, rpayLK^u ts aveirXaae irpooros aoiSrjv, 
KW/J.i}Tais veaphs KaivoTOfxcav %a/?iras. 

From this we learn not only that Thespis was the 
earliest tragedian, but also that tragedy in his day 
was a new entertainment to the people. To these 
testimonies we may add that of Plutarch §, who says 
that " Thespis and his school began to call tragedy 
into existence." And if further evidence be needed, 
we have that of Clemens of Alexandria to the same 

* pp. 165—180. 

f 1. 465. : 'A9' ou ©eairis 6 ttoltittjs .... Trpcoros t>s Kai ec$i5a£e. 
The word irp&Tos is not in the printed edition ; but it is legible on the 
marble. 

J 0eV7ri5os €vpefjia tovto. The epigram is printed at length at the 
commencement of Stanley's edition of iEschylus. 

§ apx°l x ^ V(j0l/ r ^ p ir€ P l © ecr7n * / ^77 t)]v Tparycc'Sia.v Kiveiv. — Plut. 
Vit Solon. 



THESPIS THE FIRST TRAGIC POET. 33 

effect, who calls him the "deviser of tragedy/'* 
and of Athenaeus, who manifestly alludes to Thespis 
when he states that tragedy " had its origin in the 
Icarian dance/' f and in mentioning the early tragic 
poets, thus enumerates them, "Thespis, Pratinas, 
Cratinus (Carcinus?), and Phrynichus," and adds, 
that they were called dancers (op^aTi/col), " because 
of the great use which they made of dancing in 
their choruses.''^ Now, it is obvious to remark that, 
if Athenaeus had known of any earlier tragedian, he 
would have mentioned him. Suidas, moreover, 
distinctly asserts § that " Phrynichus was the scholar 
of Thespis, who first introduced tragedy ; " and it is 
admitted by Bentley — and with great force, we think 
— that it is incredible that the belief of his first in- 
venting tragedy should so universally have obtained 
in the ancient world, if the tragedies of any earlier 
author had been extant. 

Having established this point, the next step is to 
consider in what sense we can allow Thespis to have 
been the first tragedian, or, in other words, what is 
the precise extent to which he altered and improved 
upon the traditionary form as it came into his hands. 
Even Plato himself admits that tragedy in some 
sense is of a far more ancient date than the sixth 
century B.C. " Tragedy," he says, " has of old 
been located here, and began not, as men imagine, 

* Strom, i. : iirevoriae rpayMav. 

t p. 40. 

% p- 22. id. Compare the words of Aristotle, Poet ch. 5. 

§ In voce ©eV7ns. 

D 



34 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

from Phrynichus and Thcspis ; but, if you will con- 
sider it, you will find it to have been an invention of 
this city, and at a very early date." * In the earlier 
chapters of this volume we have endeavoured to 
show the limitations under which we can accept this 
statement as true ; and we have already stated that 
it was under Thespis that a union took place between 
the two elements of Greek tragedy, and that the 
dramatic form began to develope itself. The follow- 
ing are the steps which would seem to have been 
made by him in advance of his predecessors. Up to 
this time the different coryphaei had at most kept ' 
up an extempore dialogue among themselves; but 
Thespis, we are told, introduced an actor for the 
purpose of relieving the chorus. f This actor J was 
called v7roKpLTi]9, because he answered (virefcpi- 
vsto) or corresponded with the songs of the chorus. 
The invention of masks, too (though assigned by 

* Plato, Minos, chap. xvi. 321. : — rj 8e Tpaycpfiia £<ttI iraAaibv eV- 
6d$e, ovx cos otovrcu airb QeamSos ap^a/mevri, ov5e airb $pvvixov, dAA* €t 
&4\€i* evvorjcrai, ira^u iraAcubv avrb evprjaets ~bu rrjade rrjs irdAews euprjfia. 

f varepov Be &4ains eVcc vnoKpir^jp i^evpev, vnep rov dtavwrraveaOai 
rbv x°?° v - — Diog. Laert Plat. lxvi. It is probable that this single 
actor was, in many instances, no other than himself. At all events, 
Plutarch, in his "Life of Solon" (ch. xxix. ), states that the latter 
" saw Thespis himself performing as an actor, as was the custom 
with the ancient poets." The reader will do well to compare with 
this passage the assertion of Aristotle, Rhet. iii. 1. See also 
Livy, vii. 2. 

J Some writers, considering the leader of the chorus himself as an 
actor, speak of two viroKpirai in the time of Thespis ; and conse- 
quently state that iEschylus introduced a third actor, instead of a 
second. (Themistius, Orat. xxvi. p. 382., ed. Dindorf.) 



THESPIS IMPROVES TRAGEDY. 35 

Horace* to .ZEschylus), is generally attributed to 
Thespis ; and, as Mtiller remarks, the importance of 
this improvement in tragic art can scarcely be over- 
estimated, since it enabled the actor to sustain in 
succession a variety of parts, and so substituted 
something of regular plot and action for the mere 
monologue or story spoken by the actor in the cha- 
racter of a herald or a messenger.")* It is also as- 
serted, though it is uncertain with what amount of 
truth, that he invented the prologue and the prjais^ 
and first admitted female characters on the stage §, 
and committed his tragedies to writing. || It is pro- 
bable that he used both trochaic and iambic metre. 
The names or titles of five of his plays have been 
preserved by Suidas and other writers..). Some ex- 
tracts from the supposed remains of Thespis are pre- 
served in the pages of Plutarch and Clemens Alexan- 
drinus; but it has been satisfactorily shown that 
they are all forgeries. It is quite certain, however, 
in spite of these improvements, that under Thespis 

* " personce pallseque repertor honestse 

./Eschylus.' Ars Poet. 1. 278. 

f The mask itself was of linen. 

% Themistius, p. 316. : — Qtawis 8e irpoXoyov re /cat ffivLV e£eupei/. 

§ Suidas distinctly says : — ©iairis irpwros yvvauteiov Trpoacoirov 
eiaiiyayev. 

|| Donatus expressly asserts that this was the ease. (JDe Comoed. 
et Tragced. ; Gronovii Thesaurus, viii. p. 1387.) 

\. According to Themistius (Orat. p. 382.), they are as follows i 
— " The Alcestis ; *' " The Funeral Games of Pelias ; " " Phorbas ; " 
*« The Priests ; " and " The Youths." To this Suidas adds, that 
of their construction nothing is known, except that each seems to 
have commenced with a prologue. 

D 2 



36 HAND-BOOK OF TTIE GREEK DRAMA. 

the choral element strongly preponderated over the 
dialogue*, and, in consequence, we can understand 
the meaning of the name given by Athenseus to the 
early dramatists. In support of its appropriateness, 
we may here remark that, while all traces of his 
plays were forgotten, so far as concerns the plot and 
style, long before the age of Aristotle and Plato, 
the name of Thespis stands associated with some 
alterations in the choral dances, which once were 
deemed important, and that his choral songs and 
figures were so well known as to have passed into a 
proverb in the days of Aristophanes, f 

Bentley places the date of the earliest performance 
of Thespis about the year 535 or 536 B.C., ten years 

* It is observable that, according to Aristotle, one main point of 
the alterations introduced by iEschylus is the diminution of the 
province belonging to the choral element (Ta rod x°P°v 7/Aarrwcrej>. 
— Arist. Poet. ch. iv.). 

f Bentley, as is well known, was of opinion that the plays of 
Thespis were satirical and ludicrous, not of a tragic kind. But he 
brought forward no argument in support of his theory. The evi- 
dence on the other side is abundant. In addition to the testimonies 
already adduced in this chapter to the tragic character of Thespis, 
the mere forgeries of Heraclides Ponticus are overwhelming proof 
of the serious character of his various plays ; for, as Donaldson 
remarks, " if his contemporaries had really believed that Thespis 
wrote nothing but ludicrous plays, a scholar of Aristotle would 
hardly have attempted to impose upon the public with a set of plays 
altogether different in style and title from those of the author on 
whom he wished to pass them off." A further argument may be 
derived from the fact related by Suidas, that Sophocles wrote upon 
the chorus in opposition to Chcerilus and Thespis ; which "would 
seem to go far to prove that their performances could not have been 
so very different from his. 



THESPIS. — CHGERILUS. 37 

before the birth of iEschylus ; and it is most pro- 
bable that his career extended over a quarter of a 
century at the least. Donaldson remarks that " of 
course there could be no theatrical contests in the 
days of Thespis." (Plutarch, " Solon," xxix.) But in 
spite of so high an authority, we believe that, although 
what he states may be true of the earlier days of 
Thespis, still towards the end of his career tragic 
contests were introduced at Athens, and that Thespis 
himself in all probability contended for the prize, 
not only with Choerilus, but also with Phrynichus, 
who is called his disciple. But we are anticipating. 
The next name to that of Thespis, according to 
the usually received order, is that of Choerilus. But 
if we are left comparatively in the dark with respect 
to Thespis, this is still more the case with his suc- 
cessor. According to Suidas, he commenced ex- 
hibiting tragedies in the year 523 B.C.; and he is 
said to have contended for the prize in B.C. 499, 
with Pratinas and -ZEschylus. He is called a tragic 
poet ; and it is probable that we are to understand 
the word as true of him in its stricter and more 
primitive sense, since he is mentioned as having espe- 
cially excelled in the satyric drama.* From this we 
may infer, that up to the period of Choerilus tragedy 
had not quite departed from its original form, and 
that the chorus was still satyric or tragic in the 
proper sense of the word. But of the satyric drama 
we shall come to speak in its proper place. Choerilus 

* In the anonymous verse, — 

7)vina fihu fia<TiAevs i)V XoipiXos iv ^ZarvpoKTU 
D 3 



1 



38 IIAXP-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

is said to have been the author of 150 plays; but not 
oven a fragment of his writings has been preserved. 
Pausanias * mentions the name of one of his dramas 
called the Alope, in which Cercyon and Triptolemus 
are introduced ; and hence we should be inclined to 
suppose that his writings partook of the mythical as 
well as of the satyric character ; and he is said to 
have introduced some improvements in the dress of 
the actors on the stage. His name, we may here 
remark, is generally mentioned by ancient authors 
with some degree of contempt ; but some modern 
writers have claimed for him, as probably his due, a 
higher rank, since he is mentioned by Alexis f in 
company with Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod, and Epi- 
charmus. 

The name of Phrynichus, which follows next in 
order, brings us once more within the region of well 
ascertained facts. The date of his birth and death 
are unknown; but it is a well established fact that 
he contended for the tragic prize successfully in 511 
B.C., and again, after an interval of thirty-five years, 
in 476 B.C. (when Themistocles was his choragusj), 
with a play called the Phcenissce. In this play, which 
is generally thought to have been the source whence 
JEschylus borrowed his idea of the Persse, he cele- 
brated the exploits of Athens in the Persian war. 
The chorus was composed, as the name of the play 
denotes, of Phasnician women from Sidon and its 
coasts, who had been sent to the Persian court ; and 

* i. 14. § 3. f Athen. iv. p. 164. C. % .See below, ch. v 



PHRYNICHUS. 39 

another part of it was formed of noble Persians, who 
in the king's absence consulted about the affairs of 
the kingdom, — a feature which possibly accounts for 
the title of Xuvdcotcoi, or the " Councillors," under 
which it appears to be enumerated by Suidas.* In 
the interval, however, Phrynichus had exhibited a 
tragedy the results of which have immortalised his 
name in the pages of Herodotus. During the Ionian 
revolt, the city of Miletus had been taken by the 
Persians, B. C. 494 ; and Phrynichus chose as the 
subject of a tragedy the capture of that city, and the 
calamities consequent upon its fall. Miletus was a 
colony and ally of Athens; and so tender were the 
ties of friendship between the mother city and her 
colony, that when Phrynichus exhibited his MiXrJTov 
aXoocrts, Herodotus | informs us that " the whole 
theatre was moved to tears, and that the Athenian 

* With respect to this play, Muller says : " At the beginning of 
this drama, a royal eunuch and carpet-spreader (arp(ary]s) came 
forward, prepared seats for the high council, and announced its 
meeting. The weighty cares of these aged men, and the passionate 
laments of the Phoenician damsels, who had been deprived of their 
fathers or their brothers by the sea-fight, doubtless made a contrast 
in which one of the main charms of the drama consisted. The 
chorus of Phoenician women, at its entrance upon the stage, sung a 
choral song commencing with the words Iz.iS&viov &<ttv \nr6vres, or 
Kal 2i5w^os irpoXnrovTa vaov, as we learn from the scholiast on 
Aristoph. Vesp. 220." It should be observed that iEschylus himself 
would seem to allude (Ran. 1299.) to a supposition that he borrowed 
from Phrynichus his idea of some tragedy or other : — 

%va /J.7] rbu abrhv $pvptx<? 
Ktiliwva Movaccv Upbv o(pQeif]V dpeirwu. 
f vi. 21. 

d 4 



40 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

people sentenced him to pay a fine of the amount of 
a thousand drachmae, for having reminded them too 
keenly of their own misfortunes." " A remarkable 
judgment," observes Miiller*, " of the Athenians con- 
cerning the proper work of poetry, by which they 
manifestly expected to be raised into a higher world, 
and not to be reminded of the miseries of the present 
life." The tears which Phrynichus drew from his au- 
dience when he exhibited the play above mentioned, 
would alone show that, if he did not soar into sub- 
limity, he had w r ell studied another branch of the poet's 
art, and had made a successful appeal to the feeling of 
pity in the breasts of his countrymen. But if we 
wish to form anything like a correct notion of the 
popular opinion at Athens at a later time with re- 
gard to Phrynichus, we should naturally turn to those 
passages of the comic poets which contain any allu- 
sion to his name or writings ; and fortunately in this 
respect w r e have abundant evidence of the character 
of his works. Aristophanes frequently brings for- 
ward his name, and it is always in connection with 
sweet, tender, and plaintive subjects ; and he men- 
tions him in such way that we cannot but feel that 
even during the Peloponnesian war his melodies re- 
mained fixed in the hearts of the elder people. f That 

* Literature of Greece, chap. vi. note. 

f Thus, in the Vespse, 269., we are told of the old dicast 
Philocleon : 

Tiyeir av atiwv $pvvixou* Kal yap iariu ai>7)p 

And Agathon in the Thesmoph. 164. speaks generally of the beauty 
of his dramas. 



PHRYNICHUS. 41 

lie was plain and simple to a fault, is clear from a 
passage in the Range, and the comment of the scho- 
liast upon it: — "The very dicasts themselves, in ' The 
Wasps, trill plaintive songs, those sweet old honied 
songs of Phrynichus and the Sidonians."* And 
Phrynichus is compared to a bee " feeding on the 
fruit of ambrosial melodies, and uttering the sweet- 
ness of song." f From all this it is clear that, while 
he fell short of JEschylus in grandeur, and of Sopho- 
cles in art, he had a beauty and a grace of his own 
which was not lost upon his countrymen, and which 
makes us regret that, out of the fifteen or seventeen % 
tragedies ascribed to him, no fragments remain from 
which we can form an independent judgment on his 
merits. It is generally asserted, as we said above, 
that he was the first who admitted female parts upon 
the stage ; but these, according to the habits of the 
ancients, could only be acted by men. Like Thespis, 
he had only one actor, at all events in the early part 
of his career, before the innovations of his great fol- 
lower and rival, of whom we shall speak in another 
chapter. Some of his characters, to judge from the 
words of Euripides in the Range of Aristophanes §, 

* apxaioijL€\7)cri$o>i'0(ppvi'ix'hp aTa ' — v. 219. 

t Aves, 748. 

J Donaldson agrees with the majority of authors in considering 
that several of these tragedies are the works of two other dramatists 
of the same name, and who have heen confounded with the cotem- 
porary of Choerilus and iEschylus. Bentley, however, has argued 
very forcibly on the other side, that this supposition is untenable, 
and that there was ouly one tragic poet of this name. 

§ Line 912, 



42 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

would appear to have been mutes upon the stage, 
such as Niobe for instance; and there need have 
been nothing ridiculous in such an arrangement, but 
on the contrary, much that was in strict keeping 
with what we conceive to have been the leading 
feature in Phrynichus as a dramatist. But the ob- 
servation of Miiller is doubtless true, when he re- 
marks that in all probability his chief merit lay in 
dancing* and lyric compositions, and that, if his works 
were extant at the present day, we should feel in- 
clined to rank him rather among the lyric poets of 
the ^Eolian school than among the dramatists of 
Athens. 

In treating of Choerilus, we have already men- 
tioned the satvric drama as the branch of dramatic 
art in which he most excelled. But the complete 
separation of the satyric drama from tragedy in its 
more usual acceptation, was effected by Pratinas, a 
Phliasian, who came forward at Athens, about the 
year jb. c. 500, as a rival of Choerilus and JEschylus. 
His preference for the satyric drama probably arose 
from the connection of his native Phlius with Co- 

* Plutarch (Symp. iii. 9.) has preserved part of an epigram said 
to have been written by Phrynichus himself, in which he thus com- 
memorates the fruitfulness of his fancy in devising figure dances : 

aX'hl xa ' Ta & opxnws t6(Tol fxoi irSpev, ftao* inl irdurca 
Kiffiara iroie7rai x e ^ aTi V H o\oi\. 

Compare Arist. Vesp. 1523 — 5.: 

raxvv 7ro5a KvuXoaogelre, 
Kal rb fypui/ixewv 
cKKcLKTiadru) ris. 



PRATINAS. — SATYRIC DRAMA. 43 

rinth and Sicyon, where the tragedy of Arion and 
Epigenes had introduced a chorus of satyrs. We 
know but little of Pratinas, except what we learn 
from Suidas, namely, that he composed fifty dramas, 
of which no less than thirty-two were satyrical, and 
that his fellow-citizens at Phlius honoured him with 
a monument in their market place as a composer of 
satyric dramas second only to .ZEschylus. We are 
also informed that he wrote lyric poems of a hypor- 
chematic kind.* In connection with his name we 
may also mention that on one occasion, when he was 
acting at Athens, his wooden stage broke down, and 
that in consequence of this accident the Athenians 
were induced to build a theatre of stone. 

Such is the scanty amount of information that we 
possess concerning the four Greek tragedians whose 
names have come down to us as having flourished 
prior to the days of -ZEschylus. But before we close 
the present chapter, it will be necessary to add a 
few remarks on the satyric drama, with which the 
names of two out of them are so intimately asso- 
ciated. 

The term aarvpos or rirvpos — for the two 
words are etymologically the same — was identical 
in meaning with rpdyo9 y a goat, and was applied 
from the very earliest times to the worshippers of 
Bacchus, who danced in the cyclic chorus around the 
altar of the wine-god, clad in rude and grotesque 
dresses of the skins of goats, which probably they 

* See Muller, Lit. of Greece, ch. xii. § 10. 



44 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

had sacrificed upon the altar ; thus representing the 
bands of Silcni and other fabulous divinities which 
the old poetic traditions had assigned to Bacchus as 
his customary train of attendants. Such, as we have 
already seen above *, was the original form which the 
worship of Dionysus assumed among the Ionian 
peasantry. But, as tragedy in its more usual accep- 
tation (to borrow the words of Miillerf) " constantly 
inclined to heroic fables in preference to subjects 
connected with Dionysus, and as the rude style of 
the old Bacchic sports yielded to a more dignified and 
serious mode of composition, the chorus of satyrs 
was no longer an appropriate accompaniment. But 
it was the custom in Greece to retain and cultivate 
all the earlier forms of poetry which had anything 
peculiar and characteristic, together with the newer 
varieties formed from them. Accordingly, in the 
course of time, a separate satyric drama was deve- 
loped in addition to tragedy, and, for the most part, 
three tragedies and one satyric drama at the conclu- 
sion were represented together, forming a connected 
whole. This satyric drama was not a comedy, but, 
as an ancient author aptly describes it, a playful 
tragedy. Its subjects were taken from the same 
class of adventures of Bacchus and the heroes as in 
tragedy ; but they were so treated in connection 
with rude objects of outward nature, that the pre- 
sence and participation of rustic petulant satyrs 
seemed quite appropriate. Accordingly, all scenes 

* Page 18. f Literature of Greece, ch. vi. 



SATYRIC DRAMA. 45 

from free untamed nature — adventures of a striking 
character, where strange monsters and savage ty- 
rants of mythology are overcome by valour or stra- 
tagem — belong to this class; and in such scenes as 
these the satyrs could express various feelings of 
terror and delight, disgust and desire, with all the 
openness and unreserve which belong to their cha- 
racter. All mythical subjects and characters were 
not, therefore, suited to the satyric drama. The 
character best suited to this drama seems to have 
been the powerful hero Hercules, an eater and 
drinker and boon companion, who, when he is in 
good humour, allows himself to be amused by the 
petulant sports of satyrs and other similar elves. 9 ' 

But we shall hereafter have cause to say more con- 
cerning the satyric drama, when we come to examine 
in detail the plays of Euripides, and more especially 
his Alcestis and his Cyclops. 



16 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 



CHAP. V. 

TIME AND PLACE. — THE FESTIVALS OF BACCHUS. — THE 
THEATRE. — THE POET. ACTORS. AUDIENCE. 

The student of antiquity, and especially of the 
ancient drama, cannot be too often reminded that, 
if he would form to himself an adequate estimate of 
theatrical representations at Athens, or catch any- 
thing of their spirit and meaning, he must cast aside 
all the associations of modern habits and customs, 
and throw himself into the circumstances under 
which the Grecian dramas were performed. Our 
theatres are places of amusement, or at the best of 
instruction ; they are open night after night for 
dramatical performances ; and our plays are, or aim 
at being, close representations of the actual manners 
of daily life — of human life as agitated by the actual 
passions of human nature, and corresponding as 
accurately as possible to the original in all its 
features. But it was not so at Athens. From the 
very earliest times, as we have already seen, the 
Grecian drama was connected with the rites of the 
national religion; and it must be remembered that 
this connection lasted throughout the whole period 
of its existence. " The theatrical representations at 
Athens, even in the days of Sophocles and Aristo- 
phanes, were constituent parts of a religious festival; 



IDEA OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 47 

the theatre in which they were 'performed was sacred 
to Bacchus, and the worship of the god was always 
as much regarded as the amusement of the sovereign 
people."* Moreover, instead of adhering to ordi- 
nary life, the Grecian drama aimed at departing as 
far as possible from it : its character is in the highest 
degree ideal. The very artistic costume f adopted 
by the actors and the chorus, was as far as possible 
removed from that worn by Athenian citizens of the 
day : though stiff and conventional, still it was 
heroic, and therefore ideal, and tended in no small 
degree to assist the illusion produced by other 
means to which we shall hereafter allude. The 
actors of tragedy wore long dresses reaching down to 
the ground, (irsifkoi, aroXal Troh^pzis), over which 
were thrown upper garments of purple and various 
colours of brilliant hues, with gay trimmings and 
ornaments of gold ; in fact their costume w T as the ordi- 
nary dress worn at the Bacchic festivals by those who 
took part in the processions and choral dances. And 
further, as tragedy and in fact all dramatic exhibi- 
tions were performed only at the Dionysian festivals, 
the whole appearance of the theatre retained a 
Bacchic colouring, " it appeared in the character of 
a Bacchic solemnity and diversion ; and the extra- 
ordinary excitement of all minds at these festivals, 
by raising them above the tone of every-day life, 
gave both to the tragic and the comic muse unwonted 
energy and fire." f 

* Donaldson, Greek Theatre, ch. ii. § 1. 
f Miiller, Lit. of Greece, ch. xxii. § l 9j 



48 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

It is a matter still of dispute, whether the Athe- 
nian festivals of Bacchus (Atovvaca *), were three 
or four in number. Bos, in his u Antiquities of 
Greece/'f admits only two; but he is certainly mis- 
taken. Miiller admits three, the Lenasa, and the 
greater and lesser DionysiaJ, all of which festivals 
were observed with greater pomp and solemnity at 
Athens than in any other part of Greece.§ To 
these three Dionysian festivals Donaldson adds a 
fourth, which was known as the Anthesteria, 
and which is called by Thucydides himself the 

* Hesych. in Aiovwia. These festivals were often called opyia 
and Ba/cx^a. See Aristoph. Ranse, 360. 

f Part I. ch. xvi. 

J The Ayvcua (also known as ra Kifxvcua, or ra, iv Aijxvais) were so 
called from being held in a part of the city near the Acropolis, 
where was a sacred ir€pi§o\os or enclosure sacred to Bacchus, and 
containing a Krjvds or winepress associated with his worship from 
very early times. The Ta kclt aypovs, as their name imports, were 
celebrated in every Srj/nos and village of Attica, in a more humble 
and rustic way. They are alluded to by Dicseopolis in Aristophanes' 
" Acharnians," line 202. : #£o> ra kclt ay povs elo-ikv Awvwia. 
The greater Dionysia, ra acm/ca, or ra eV oVt€/, called also Ta 
/ueyaAa, or simply Ta Aiovvcria, were celebrated in the spring, at the 
time when the allies were in Athens for the purpose of paying their 
<p6pos. This assertion is supported by a passage in the " Acharnians," 
1. 477. &c, and the scholiast ad loc, as well as by the reproach of 
^Eschines against Demosthenes, to the effect that he was too vain to 
be content with having the crown proclaimed at any other festival 
except the Great Dionysia, when all Greece was present. {Adv. 
Ctesiph.) \ 

§ For example, as we learn from Suidas, the years at Athens were 
numbered by them ; the chief archon had the management of them 
(diariOevai Aiouvaia, Pollux, viii. p.m. 440.); and the priest of 
Bacchus was honoured with the first seat at the public shows. 
(Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 299.) 



i 



! 
i 

RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS. 49 

greater festival of Bacchus.* But both he and Mill- 
ler are agreed in assigning the dramatic exhibitions 
to the three feasts originally mentioned, all of which 
were celebrated in the winter or early spring. From 
the extant Didascalia, or registers of the victories 
of the lyric and dramatic poets as teachers (S/Saovca- 
\ol) of their respective choruses f, Muller argues 
that at Athens new tragedies were exhibited at 
the Lensea and the greater Dionysia, the latter 
of which, he adds, was a most brilliant festival, at 
which the allies of Athens and many foreigners also 
were present. 1 Old tragedies also, he considers, 
were acted at the Lenaea; and none but old ones 
were acted at the lesser or rural Dionysia. To this 
Donaldson adds that comedies also were exhibited 
at the great Dionysia and the Lensean festival ; and 
he is inclined to believe that no actual representa- 
tions of dramas took place at the Anthesteria, 
although probably the tragedians may have then 

* ii. 15. Others consider that Thucydides refers in this passage 
to the Lencea. 

f See below, near the end of this chapter. 

\ This is clear from the words of the vdfxos quoted by Demo- 
sthenes (contr. Midiam, p. 517.): v iirl A7]vai(a tto/jlit}], kcu ol rpa- 
yoiSol /cat ol Kco/J.qidol } kcu rots iv aarei £yiovvo~ioLS rj irojj.Trrjy kcu ol ircudes 
kcu 6 k&plos, kcu ol K(ti/j.a)dol koI ol rpayySoi. The fact that none but 
new dramas were allowed to appear at the greater Dionysia would 
seem to be inferred in the words of the same orator (de Corona, p. 
264.), avayopevo-cu rov arecpapou ev rq> Sedrpcp Aiovvaiois, Tpaycpduh 
naivots. Donaldson adds a note informing us that " this custom 
continued down to the times of Julius Csesar, when a similar decree 
was passed in favour of Hyrcanus, the high priest and ethnarch of 
the Jews," referring to Josephus, Ant Jud. xiv. 8. 

E 



50 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

read to a select audience the tragedies which they 
had composed for the great festival of the follow- 
ing month. We may here remark that, although 
the rural Dionysia were celebrated with dramatic 
performances, it was only at the Lenaea and 
greater Dionysia that prizes were contested by the 
poets. 

We will suppose ourselves, then, suddenly trans- 
ported to the streets of Athens as they appeared 
some three and twenty centuries backward in the 
world's history. It is early spring ; and the feast of 
the greater Dionysia is being celebrated. * The 
allies from a hundred subject cities are in Athens. 
Besides these, there are metoecs and other strangers 
in hundreds and thousands : rough mountaineers 
from Arcadia, sturdy seamen from Rhodes and 
Crete, the dark swarthy faces of Egyptians, and the 
more polished and wealthy merchants from Cyprus 
and Phoenicia. The city is beside itself with joy ; 
and its inhabitants are vying with each other in 
doing honour to the fabled victories and the more 
tangible bounties of Dionysus. There is silence 
indeed in the law courts and the prisons ; for how 
shall prisoners not be freed by the god whom the 
people worships under the title of Eleutherius ? But 
in the streets there is nothing to be heard but the 
Bacchic song, or to be seen save the Bacchic revelry 
of the Thiasus ; the gift of the wine-god is freely 

* A graphic and spirited picture of Athens during a Dionysian 
festival, may be found in Mr. J. T. Wheeler's Biography of Hero- 
dotus, vol. ii. ch. 29. (Longmans, 1856.) 



THE DIONYSIA AT ATHENS. 51 

drunk, and inspires his votaries with proportionate 
enthusiasm. It is an ancient carnival outdone in 
the madness of its boisterous and extravagant merri- 
ment. There is the phallic procession, headed by a 
citizen who carries the thyrsus, and who, with his 
attendant train of revellers, has assumed the goat- 
skin of the ancient satyrs, and has daubed his face 
and arms with green and red juices, or painted them 
with stripes of soot and vermilion. Behind him 
walk in stately order some comely maidens of noble 
birth, who, with heads erect, bear aloft the mystic 
basket of sacred figs, while a Xucvofyopos carries the 
image of the god himself, and a motley crowd of 
male and female maskers, Bacchae, and Thyades, close 
the procession with the boisterous music of flutes, 
cymbals, and drums.* And again in the great public 
procession of the day, where the noblest of foreigners 
and citizens are collected, the god is represented by 
the most beautiful of the slave population, dressed 
out in the most expensive and fantastic of theatrical 
array sf, and the joyous crowd, with frantic cries of 
triumph and exultation, attend the principal train to 
the Temple of Bacchus. 

But it is towards the south-eastern side of the hill^ 
which is crowned by the Acropolis, that the crowds 
are flocking thickest from every quarter of the city. 
The theatre of Bacchus is the great centre of attrac- 

* Bockh's Essay, Philol. Mus. vol. ii. 

t Plutarch, Nic. 3., relates that, on one occasion, a beautiful 
slave belonging to Nicias represented Dionysus. Compare Athe- 
nseus, v. p. 200. 

E 2 



52 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

tion. It is no common building that can find space 
for so many thousand people ; and it is no ordinary 
scenic performance that is presently to add a high 
intellectual treat to the more sensual enjoyments of 
the festival. A new tragedy, upon an old heroic 
story of thrilling interest, of Pallas Athena, or of the 
old Mycenian kings of " Pelops' line," has gained 
the tragic prize; its praises have been highly sounded 
for some weeks in private ; and now it is about to 
be displayed for the first time. The choragus has 
munificently furnished his costly contingents ; the 
poet has chosen the best actors of the city, and has 
decked them in the most gorgeous of tragic attire ; 
and, above all, the author himself is the popular 
favourite of the day. The people, too, during 
their much Joved feast, have succeeded in breaking 
the chains that bound them to their common daily 
life ; with their keen poetic and religious feelings 
excited to the utmost, they have passed into an ideal 
and imaginary world; and so with breathless ea- 
gerness, and with their expectations raised to the 
highest pitch, 30,000 of their number enter the 
theatre, and seat themselves, and await the opening 
of the drama. 

Such in few words, is a true picture of the scene 
which must have been witnessed at Athens upon 
each return of the greater Dionysia. We have 
stated the time at which this feast was celebrated ; 
we therefore now go on to add some account of the 
place in which these tragic displays were exhibited. In 
other words, we proceed next to a description of the 



AN ANCIENT THEATRE. 53 

theatre of Bacchus at Athens, the most perfect 
theatre of antiquity, and the model upon which 
those in the other cities of Greece and Italy were 
generally formed, though with more or less of strict 
resemblance in detail. 

I. In perusing the following pages the student, 
we repeat, must dismiss from his mind altogether 
the idea of a modern theatre. An open-air exhibi- 
tion, attended by many thousands of spectators, 
and bearing the character of a great religious festival, 
is without any exact parallel in modern times. But 
as far as regards the general aspect of the building, 
and the whole assemblage, we may imagine them to 
have presented somewhat the same appearance as 
the crowded galleries rising, round the circus of an 
Andalusian or Grallician bull-fight in the middle 
ages. The old wooden scaffolding erected within 
the Lenaeon, or enclosure sacred to Bacchus, having 
fallen down in the year 500 B.C., the Athenians 
commenced building that magnificent theatre of stone 
which it took 120 years to complete, although at 
an earlier period the work had proceeded far enough 
to admit of the performance of the great Attic 
dramas. The Theatre of Bacchus was built into the 
south-eastern side of the hill on the summit of which 
stood the Acropolis. From the foot of this eminence 
rose tier above tier a semicircular range of benches, 
capable of accommodating some 50,000 people. The 
lowest of these tiers was twelve feet above the level 
of the ground ; and this, with the one or two next 
above it, was appropriated to the use of the principal 

E 3 



54 IIAXD-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

people of the city, and for that reason was called the 
fiovXevTLfcov. The body of the citizens were ar- 
ranged according to their tribes ; and the young men 
had a space set apart for themselves, entitled the 
ifalfiiKov* The passages which separated the different 
tiers were denominated Sia^cofjLara, and the compart- 
ments formed by these and the staircases, which 
would cut them at right angles, Ksptcthss. The shape 
of Ihe large open space which intervened between 
the spectators and the stage with its appurtenances, 
and which was called the orchestra, will be readily 
understood, by conceiving the private boxes of an 
English theatre to be removed, and the ground which 
they now occupy, as well as the pit, with a single 
exception, to be left entirely vacant.f This whole 
space was called the orchestra; the two wings or 
horns, on either side, were called irapohoi, while the 
space which lay exactly between these, in front 
of the semicircular portion, and which , would cor- 
respond to the place occupied in our theatres by the 
stalls and orchestra, was styled the hpofjuos-. Just at 
the central point of the whole, halfway between 
either extremity of the amphitheatre, stood the 
thymele or representative of the old altar round 
which the chorus had danced, and where they now 
sat or stood during the progress of the drama : these 
were the only occupants of the orchestra. Imme- 
diately facing the thymele, and at the same height 

* Aristoph. Aves, 794., Schol. 

f For the benefit of those to whom the interior of an English 
theatre may not be familiar, we have added the subjoined figure. 



THEATRE OF BACCHUS. 



55 




PLAN OF THE THEATRE OF BACCHUS. 



A. Lower Portico. 

B. Upper or third Portico. 

C. The Scene. 

D. The Prosceniiim. 

E. The Hyposcenium. 

F. The Thymele. 



G. The Parascenium. 
H. The Orchestra. 
I. The Setts. 
K. The Staircases. 
L. Periactae. 
M. The Bouleuticon. 



from the ground as the lowest tier of the benches 
composing the amphitheatre, was the front portion of 
the stage, projecting a little from the rest, and called 
the Xoystov : this was where the principal part of the 
dialogue was carried on. The Xoyslov itself was 
built of wood ; but the front and sides were adorned 
with columns and statues, which were called ra vtto- 



56 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 



a/ojvia. Next behind the \oys2ov was the stage proper, 
or 7rpoaKJ]vtov 9 so called from being in front of the 
(TK71V7], and built of stone. At the back of this stood 
the aK7]vij * or scene, a stationary edifice of stonework 
representing a palace, with three entrances to the 
stage, of which the middle one, intended for the 
principal characters, was called fiacriXzios. The other 
two are called by Vitruvius hospitales, as supposed 
to lead to the apartments of the King's guests. If 
an actor entered the Xoyslov from the side near 
Athens, he was supposed to belong to the city in 
which the scene was laid ; if from the other side, he 
was supposed to be a stranger. These contrivances 
were necessary to a people who knew nothing of 
playbills. The sides of the proscenium consisted, 
like the back, of stationary stone buildings, having 
passages communicating with the rest of the theatre, 
but not intended for the entrance of actors. f Behind 



* If we remember the exact meaning of this word we shall 
appreciate the beauty of Virgil's expression — 

" Turn silvis scena coruscis 
Desuper." 2En. i. line 164. 

f There is a passage in the oration of Demosthenes against 
Miflias which has given rise to much difficulty on this subject : 
tovs x°P^y°^ s (Tvvriyev in 4fi4, {Zo&v, aweiAcov, d/j.vvovai TrapearriKcbs 
ro7s Kpn-cus, ra irapaffKrivia. (ppaTToov, TrpoarjXcov, 18iwtt]s &v f t<x hi](x6cna 
kclkcl Ka\ Trpdy/xara afxvO-qrd /j.ol Trapexw SitTeXeaej/. Wolfe, in his 
"Analecta Literaria" has a long dissertation on this subject, in which 
he endeavours to prove that Vitruvius was mistaken in supposing 
that the irapa(TKr)VLa were the sides of the proscenium. It appears 
to us sufficient to consider that there were two kinds ofrrapaaK-npia and 
fTKrjvai, — the permanent buildings of stone, and also the wooden 



>r, 



A GREEK THEATRE : PARTS ; MACHINERY. 57 

the cncrjvrj and TrapaaKrjvia were the dressing-rooms 
of the actors, and what we should now call property 
rooms, containing the machinery, dresses, &c* The 
entrances to the theatre (stcrohoi) were at the sides of 
the irdpohoi, and all round the outside was a space 
covered with turf, planted with trees, and encircled 
with a portico, where the chorus used to rehearse. 
There was a similar portico outside the top of the 
amphitheatre; in both of these the audience took 
shelter in case of a sudden storm, and they also served 
as places in which slaves waited for their masters 
during the performances. 

II. The machinery of the Attic theatre consisted 
principally of the ecclyclema and periactas. We 
must remember that with them the chief object of 
scenery always was represented in the <t/ct]V7] or back- 
ground, while the openings into the distance lay on 
each side. The machinery for changing these was 
such as we have mentioned. The periacta3 were tri- 
angular pieces of woodwork revolving upon a pivot, 
which were used for changes in the side scenery, and 
of course stood in front of and concealed the stone 
buildings of the parascenia. These must, in some 

slides which were used when it was necessary to depart from the 
ordinary scene of the outside of a royal house. The meaning of 
the words (ppdrrcoy and irpocr^Xcav then becomes perfectly clear, and 
we see no necessity for plunging any farther into the perplexing 
though learned controversy which Wolfe has started. 

* See Miiller, Lit. of Greece, vol i. p. 301. note. The account above 
given seems the most simple and intelligible ; it is surely im- 
probable that these rooms should have been situated between the 
parascenia and the stage, as Donaldson represents them. 



58 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

respects, have been more convenient than our own 
system of slides. The eccyclema was not in such 
frequent use. It was only required on those occa- 
sions when some extraordinary effect was to be pro- 
duced. Usually it w T as employed to bring to view 
the interior of a house ; for the aicr)vr} itself never re- 
presented anything but the outside, — a plan which 
was strictly in accordance with the Greek habit of 
living in the open air. The eccyclema itself was a 
movable scene, generally a house, which was placed 
behind the central entrance or fiacriXuov in the <r/cr]vrj. 
This entrance was closed either by curtains or folding- 
doors; and at a given signal these were thrown 
open, and the eccyclema wheeled forwards. In shape 
it was concave ; and thus the necessary effect was 
produced. Among the scenes supposed by Mliller 
to have been represented in this manner are that in 
the Agamemnon of iEschylus in which Clytem- 
nestra with the bloody sword stands over the bodies 
of Agamemnon and Cassandra; that in the Choe- 
phoroe in which Orestes is seen on exactly the same 
spot, after the slaughter of ^Egisthus and Clytem- 
nestra ; and that in the Ajax of Sophocles, in which 
the hero stands among the animals which he has slain 
in his frenzy, and contemplates the effects of his 
madness. * 

It must, of course, be borne in mind, that there 
w r ere many Greek plays, in the representation of 



* Other instances may be found in the Electra of Sophocles, line 
1450, and the Antigone, line 1293, et seq. 



THE ACTORS AND AUDIENCE. 59 

which both the scena and parascenia were useless. 
In Sophocles alone, the GEdipus Coloneus, the Ajax, 
and the Philoctetes would require something different 
from the outside of a city mansion. Still, as this 
latter was the rule in their scenery, they kept the 
stationary G/ciqvr) which we have described, and appear 
to have used wooden slides like our own, which 
formed a sort of false back and sides to the prosce- 
nium, when it was necessary to effect any such 
change.* 

III. We now proceed to our consideration of the 
actors and the audience. The state in which the 
dram:: had been left by Thespis has been already 
described. He had introduced a single actor (vTroxpL- 
T7]sf) 9 for the purpose, it is said, of resting the chorus; 
but it was yet uncertain whether the chorus or the 
dialogue should become the leading feature of Greek 
tragedy. This question was set at rest by -ZEschylus, 
who introduced a second actor; and it was then 
probably that the names of 7rpcoraycovicrT7]9 and Ssu- 
T6paya)VLcrTr}9 were first conferred. In such of his 

* Various other contrivances were in use for special purposes ; 
such as the &eo\oye?ov, the al&pcu, the A«?X az/ ^ repavos, fipovrelov, and 
K€pavyo§povre?ov, tuaucvkXiov, &c, which the student will find ex- 
plained in the " Dictionary of Grecian and Roman Antiquities." 

f On the derivation of the word viroKpir^s, the reader may 
compare Eustathius ad Iliad. H. 407. : 9 I<rr4ov 5e kcu on ovk o?8ej> 
0/J.7)pos r\\v Ae'£tj/ rod airoKpivaadai, cas Kal iu a\A.ois <pa,vsLrai, a\X' avr' 
avrov rep viroKpiuaaOai Ke'xpjrar cpaal 5e Kal rov irapa ro7s dpafj.ariKo?s 
v-rroKpirT]]/ ovrco \4yecrdcu, 5ia rb irpbs rbv x°P 0J/ viroKpipeorOcu. The term 
therefore originated with the introduction by Thespis of an actor 
to take part with the chorus. 



60 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

tragedies as were acted by two characters only, viz., 
the * Prometheus,' the 'Persae,' the 'Septem contra 
Thebas,' and the * Supplices,' the parts of the prota- 
gonist and deuteragonist are not substantially different 
from those assigned them after a third actor had been 
added. The first is what we call " the hero " of the 
piece; the second is a sort of foil, who is to call 
out the expression of his various emotions. In the 
' Prometheus Vinctus/ Oceanus, Io, and Hermes 
assume this character in turn ; but there is also a 
third and invisible power in the background, who 
causes the sufferings of the protagonist; and it is 
the personification of this power which is attributed 
to Sophocles. He added the rpLraycovLcrTrjs to the 
other two ; and Athenian tragedy was complete. 

The costume and general bearing of the actors, as 
we have already observed, was splendid and im- 
posing.* " Almost all the actors in a tragedy wore 

* " If we desire to form a lively and true conception of the pro- 
cedure of an ancient Tragedy on the stage, we must first divest 
ourselves entirely of those ideas of the characters in the Grecian 
Mythology, which we derive from ancient works of art, and which, 
from natural reasons, are continually floating before our imagina- 
tion. There is not the least comparison to be drawn between the 
scenic and the plastic costume of the ancient gods and heroes ; for, 
as the statements of the old grammarians and ancient works of art 
(especially the mosaics in the Vatican) sufficiently prove, there was 
but one general <ttoAt7, or costume, for tragedy. This was nothing 
more than an improvement on the gay and brilliant (tzolklXcl or kvdiva) 
apparel worn in processions at the Dionysian festivals ; and but 
slight alterations were needed to adapt it to the different dramatic 
characters. The following parts of dress are universally reckoned 
in the costume : long x iT & v * s of various gay colours, falling in 



TRAGIC COSTUME. 61 

long striped garments reaching to the ground, over 
which were thrown upper garments of purple or some 
other brilliant colour, with all sorts of gay trimmings 
and gold ornaments — the ordinary dress at Bacchic 
festal processions and choral dances." To elevate 
the performer's stature, the cothurnus was composed 
of several soles of considerable thickness ; and the 
principal reason for not employing actresses was the 
belief that they would not possess sufficient dignity 
for the parts of goddesses and heroines. But that 
portion of the actor's costume on which the greatest 
attention was lavished was the mask (oyfcos). This 
was made of bronze or copper ; and there were no 
less than 26 different kinds of masks in use. It is 
generally conjectured that they were formed with the 
view of giving greater power to the voice ; and their 
Latin term persona (per-sono), seems to favour this 
hypothesis. The mask was connected with a periwig 
(7T7)viK7i, favdftr)), which covered the head, and so 
left only one passage for the voice to escape from : 



ample folds down to the feet ; very broad embroidered girdles 
(^/j.a(Txa\icrT7Jpes) sitting on the breast ; upper robes, frequently of 
purple, with gold borders and other such-like decorations ; the 
cothurnus, and the head-dress (tfy/cos). As in the Dionysian cere- 
monies, so also in tragedy, there was but little distinction between 
the male and female apparel. In speaking of heroes, the tragedians 
very often call their dress ireirAos, a garb never worn at that period 
by males in common life. In the ancient mosaics, one is continually 
in danger of confounding heroes with heroines, unless where the 
old equestrian chlamydes are thrown over the long bright-coloured 
tunics, or weapons added, or masks characterised by some marked 
difference." — Muller, Eumen. p. 100. 



62 ITAND-BOOK OF THE GE EEK DRAMA. 

this was termed the os rotundum. The wis was col- 
lected into a foretop, which was the ojkos proper, 
and thought by Donaldson to have been derived 
from the old Athenian top-knot (KpcoftvXov).* This, 
like the cothurnus, was intended to add to the actor's 
stature. Opinions differ as to the exact degree of 
resemblance which the mask bore to real life ; it was 
formed, however, of the very finest material, and 
coloured with great care, so that doubtless, at the 
great distance which separated the audience, the il- 
lusion was sufficient. But we must remember that in 
the tragedy, where gods and heroes or, if not heroes, 
still men meliorzs cevi, men of larger stature and 
more godlike aspect than their descendants, figured 
as the principal characters, no strict similitude to the 
human faces around them was desirable. Neither, in 
the majority of cases, was the play of the passions 
necessary to be delineated ; for, in the first place, 
these exalted beings were not supposed to be subject 
to those rapid fluctuations of feeling which distin- 
guish ordinary mortals ; and in the second place there 
would generally be some one dominant emotion 
throughout the tragedy, which would necessitate the 
same expression of countenance to the last. This 
could not have been successful in a smaller theatre, 
where decidedly we should require that the tempo- 
rary sadness of QEdipus in the first scenes of the 
Tyrannus should be differently displayed from the 
overpowering horror which he subsequently elis- 

* See Thucydides, i. 6.: T€TTiywv ivepcrti KpuiovKov avufiotifxsvoi. 



DRESS, MASKS, ETC., OF ACTORS. 63 

covers at the revelations of the herdsman. But in 
the vast theatre of Bacchus, the same general ex- 
pression of gloom and grief would doubtless suf- 
fice throughout. All that exquisite acting which 
we can imagine in Garrick, Kemble, or Siddons, 
as confidence gradually gave way to doubt, doubt 
to certainty, and certainty to despair, was of course 
wholly lost to an Athenian audience. It should be 
added, that their idea of the tragic drama did not 
extend to the representation of these emotions ; and 
when they punished Phrynichus for his Capture of 
Miletus, as we have already remarked, they very 
plainly declared that tragedy must not seek for its 
materials in the ordinary world around us. They 
witnessed the plays of Sophocles and .iEschylus with 
much the same feelings as we peruse " Paradise 
Lost," which, if dramatised, would certainly depend 
very little on the finer accomplishments of the his- 
trionic art. There were, of course, certain cases in 
which a change of masks between the acts was abso- 
lutely necessary, as in the mutilation of CEdipus in 
the play aforesaid ; but this, as will be readily seen, 
scarcely forms an exception to the custom which we 
have described. 

The pay of an actor at Athens was often very 
high indeed, and was generally defrayed by the 
state. T\us, for example, Polus, who acted the 
characters of Sophocles, sometimes earned a talent, 
(or nearly 500/.) in two days. When this was the 
case, as we may suppose, the profession was held in 
no dishonour. Sophocles himself, who acted as well 



64 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

aa wrote, was a man of rank, and was entrusted 
with the command of a military expedition ; and 
Aristodemus, another performer, was sent on a public 
embassy. 

IV. Our remarks on the character of Athenian 
acting, lead us by a natural transition to the subject of 
the chorus. The chprus, as its position might perhaps 
indicate, was the interpreter between the actors and 
the audience. In their countenance would doubtless 
be manifested the livelier expressions of fear, hope, 
and indignation — they would in fact, supply the 
more purely human element. Perhaps, for the sake 
of an illustration, it would not be going too far to 
consider the play itself as partaking somewhat of a 
panoramic character, and the chorus in the light of 
the lecturer. If this comparison be thought un- 
dignified, we can only reply that, if it aids the reader 
to form a true conception of the subject, the good 
names of Sophocles and iEschylus will not suffer 
any injury. But however this may be, if we consider 
the question from this point of view, w T e gain, it is 
probable, a clearer insight into the real necessity of 
the chorus, than by regarding more exclusively its 
religious and traditional features. The truth, as it 
seems to us, is that an Athenian tragedy would have 
been unsupportable without the addition of the choral 
element. 

The origin of the chorus, as mentioned in an 
earlier chapter, was partly military, and is to be 
sought in the old Doric military discipline, of which 
a kind of statelv war dance " to the sound of flutes 



ORIGIN OF THE CHORUS. 65 

and soft recorders/' was an important element. This 
will explain the manner of its entrance on the 
stage, and the nature of the first choral song. In 
the military marches of the Greeks, the anapaestic 
metre was generally used ; and the parodos, or first 
song sung by the chorus as it marched in at the side 
entrance, from which its name was derived, was gene- 
rally if not always written in anaplastics. The subse- 
quent clustering of the chorus round the thymele,and 
the introduction of the lyric element, denotes the other 
source from which the chorus derived its existence — 
i.e. religion, or the Bacchic worship; while the songs 
which they uttered from this position, called stasima, 
bore a nearer resemblance to the poetry of Stesi- 
chorus, Pindar, and Simonides. All that part of the 
play which preceded the parodos was called the pro- 
logue; all between the parodos and the last stasimon, 
episodia ; all after the last stasimon, the exodus. 
The parodos and the stasima were confined to the 
full chorus ; but there was also a kind of choral lyric 
song common both to the chorus and the actors • 
this was known by the name of ko/jl/jlo? {jplanctus\ and 
was always devoted to lamentation. In the Persse 
and the Choephoroe, the 'coramos' occupies a large 
portion of the entire tragedy. 

V. A very few words on the subject of the audience 
mast close the present chapter. Originally there was 
no charge for admission, but subsequently two obols 
were fixed upon as the price. To such an extent, 
however, did the Athenians carry the worship of art, 
ihat they very soon adopted the practice of paying 

F 



66 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

for the admission of the poorer citizens out of a 
public fund. It is probable, though not certain, that 
women were admitted to witness theatrical represen- 
tations.* 

VI. The expense of theatrical representations was 
defrayed by the state. | The xoprjyla was one of the 
regular liturgies which devolved upon each tribe in 
turn. This was the Athenian method of levying 
rates and taxes; and this x°PVJ^ a corresponded in 
principle with what a theatre rate would be among 
us. The tribe chose one of themselves to be its 
%opri<y6si and on him devolved the selection of its 
chorus and the superintendence of their instruction 
in their songs and dances. When however the %o- 
pr)y6s was once named, he was left, within certain 
limits, to his own discretion as to the style in which 
his play was to be brought out. A citizen who gave 
great satisfaction to the people was frequently re- 
warded with a tripod ; and the office of choragus be- 
came in time a very common opportunity of courting 
the popular favour. The course pursued in order to 
exhibit a play, was as follows : — The poet who had a 
play ready for representation applied to one of the 
archons. If it was at the Lensea, to the archon /3a- 
crtXevs, if at the Dionysia, to the chief archon ; and 
s 

b * Compare Plato, Gorg. p. 502., where he describes a tragedy as 

| p7)TopiK7)v riva irpbs h^ixovro iovtop oiou iraiSovf re dfiov /cat yvvaiKai' KaX 

avBpccv Ka\ dovhoov kclI itevOepvi' 

f This expense eventually became so heavy, that Athens is said 
^ to have spent more money on scenic representations than on all her 



EXHIBITION OF A PLAY. 67 

if his play was approved a chorus was assigned to him. 
This was called x°P° v ^ovat 9 and the phrase ulti- 
mately became a general term for the approval or 
acceptance of a play. The poet was said %opov ciItslv. 
He also had assigned to him three actors, whom he 
taught himself. Hence the exhibitor of a play was 
said hihaaicsLv, literally, to teach * ; and a play was 
said to be taught, ScBdcr/ceaOau 

* Thus Horace, Ars Poet. 1. 288.: 

" Vel qui prsetextas, vel qui docuere togatas." 



J?2 



IIAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 



CHAP. VI. 

AESCHYLUS. 

" The immense influence which scenic exhibitions 
and dramatic literature have exercised on the minds 
and manners of mankind, is a sufficient reason for 
profoundly venerating the author and originator of it. 
For so we may justly style the poet who, out of the 
uncouth banterings of a religious festivity, created 
the majestic and soul inspiring art which has softened 
the sternest hearts, and claimed for its votaries the 
proudest intellects. The drama is the manifestation 
of the invisible mind of man, the mirror in which, 
while we think that we are looking at others, we un- 
expectedly see ourselves reflected. To possess in 
our own native literature the greatest dramatist the 
world has perhaps ever seen, should in itself be an 
inducement to study one of kindred genius and 
scarcely less exalted sentiments." * Such are the 
concluding words of an essay on >ZEschylus, contained 
in the preface to a lately published volume of the 
•' Bibliotheca Classica," a source of which we may, 
once for all, acknowledge that we have copiously 
led ourselves in the following remarks. 

Preface to Paley's iEschylus, re-edited with an English com- 
mentary for the Bibliotheca Classica, by Professor G. Long. 



LIFE OF JESCHYLUS. 89 

According to the testimony of ancient writers 
iEschylus was born of noble parents in the deme of 
Eleusis, in Attica, in the fourth year of the 63rd 
Olympiad, b. c. 525. He was a contemporary of 
Pindar, and fought at the battles of Marathon, Sala- 
mis, and Platsea, and thus acquired that taste for, 
and technical knowledge of, military matters, so con- 
spicuous in many of his plays. His first appearance 
as a tragedian was in B.C. 499, when he contended 
with Choerilus and Pratinas, but did not obtain the 
prize. He first carried off that honour B.C. 484, 
Fourteen years afterwards he was defeated by a poet 
who then represented for the first time, and whose 
future celebrity was perhaps scarcely foreseen, — the 
author of the GEdipus Tyrannus and the Antigone, 
About this time he exchanged Athens for Sicily, 
but for what reason is uncertain. Some say it was 
from disgust at being beaten by a young and unknown 
writer like Sophocles ; others, that it was from his 
defeat by Simonides in the elegy on those who died 
at Marathon. This first disappointment may certainly 
have rankled in his mind, and have reached to posi- 
tive disgust at a second failure in his own special 
province ; though it is hardly likely that his defeat by 
Simonides alone would have caused his retirement 
from Athens. Another reason which has been as- 
signed, was his having so terrified the people of 
Athens by the tragic effect of his chorus in the Eu- 
menides, that infants died of fright, and women mis- 
carried. Be this, however, as it may, he seems to 
have spent six or seven years in Sicily, and to have 

F3 



70 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

contracted a certain Sicilian taint * in his language. 
Having returned to Athens for a short time, he 
quitted it again about B.C. 458, and finally died in 
Sicily B.C. 456, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. 
His second voluntary exile has been attributed to 
the offence given to the democratic party by the 
lofty, monarchical, and aristocratic tone of his later 
tragedies. It is very possible that the charge of 
impiety which is alleged to have been preferred 
against him before the Areopagus, if the story is 
worthy of credit, may have proceeded from this feel- 
ing. It is said that he was acquitted in consequence 
of the intercession of his brothers. 

Of the extant plays of -ZEschylus, it is doubtful 
which was first represented. It is difficult to get 
over the express testimony of Aristophanes in favour 
of the Septem contra Thebas (Ran. 1026.) and Din- 
dorf adopts this order in deference to his authority. 
Bockh, however, and with him Paley and Miil- 
ler, prefer to follow the opinion of the scholiast on 
the same passage, that the Persae was his earliest 
effort, and his Septem contra Thebas the second. f 
But at all events only a year intervened between the 

* According to Athenseus, Eustathius, and Macrobius. The 
words fiovvis and Kapfiava, which occur in the Supplices, supposed to 
be the first play published by iEschylus after his return, are still 
sub judice ; see Donaldson's New Cratylus, p. 659., where fiovvis 
is connected with £o0s, /3<£Aa£, fiwfi6s ■ other words, however, such 
as 7T€5aopos, irMpaios, ixaavoov, k.t.a., are less doubtful. See also 
]><>ckh, de Trayicis Gratis, cap. viii. 

f ol 5e Ile'pcrcu irporepov uo~i SeSiScry/AcVoi, elra ol eVra 4tt\ 0r]§as. — 
Schol. 



THE PERS.E. 71 

two plays, the one appearing B.C. 493, the other 
B.C. 492. 

Following the order adopted by Mr. Paley, we 
shall begin with the Persas. Here again commen- 
tators are greatly at issue. Some think that this 
play was one of a trilogy of which the Phineus was 
the first and the GJaucus (whether " Ponteus or 
" Potnieus," is again disputed) the third. Others 
prefer to believe it a disconnected play, alleging that 
there is no proof that JEschylus invariably wrote in 
trilogies. It is also a matter of dispute whether the 
main object of the play is the evocation of Darius* 
or the celebration of the defeat of the Persians. We 
confess that we incline to the simpler view in each 
of these cases. At all events in the latter, we think 
it is the mere wantonness of learning not to accept 
the triumph of Greece as the real design of the play.* 
" The Persge was probably composed in rivalry 
rather than in imitation of the Phoenissse of Phry- 
nichus, which had gained the prize. There can be 
little doubt that the poet's detailed account of the 
battle is circumstantially correct, even more so (as 
Blakesley with great reason argues) than the later 
and probably popularised narrative of Herodotus. It 
is the earliest specimen of Greek history we possess, 
though a history in verse. It is said that this play 
was acted a second time at Syracuse, at the instance 
of Hiero ; and indeed, from the very nature of the 
subject — the only one among extant Greek tragedies 

* Miiller, Lit. Anc. Gr. chap.xxiii. 4. 

f4 



72 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

which is not borrowed from heroic myths — it is not 
unlikely that it was repeatedly re-acted {dvsSiSdxOv)' 
This tradition, indeed, has been discountenanced by 
modern critics ; yet there are good grounds for sus- 
picion that it has been to some extent remodelled 
(piacrKZvaaOsv or avaa/cevao-Ozv) and some passages 
interpolated by a later hand ; and hence, perhaps, 
we may explain the absence of a passage extant in 
the time of Aristophanes (Ran. 1028.), and of certain 
words quoted by ancient authors as from the Persa? 
of .ZEschylus, vtto^vXos and vrjpiTorpocpovs (schol. on 
Hermogenes and Athen. iii. p. 80. B.). The chorus 
consisted of twelve Persian elders. The tomb of 
Darius was represented by the thymele in the or- 
chestra, as may be inferred from v. 682, where Darius 
says to the chorus 

UytieTs 5e ^prju^r' eyyvs ecrrorres T&(pov, 

Nor is v. 660. opposed to this, s\6' g7r' aicpov 
Kopv/juffov o^Oov, for though the ghost must have 
appeared on the stage, the invocation is consistent 
with the Greek idea that the spirit hovered over 
the tomb. The speech of Atossa, at line 610., 
though highly coloured with Eastern imagery, ap- 
pears to describe Grecian rather than Persian rites. 
It is closely imitated by Euripides, Iph. Taur. 165."* 
The next play in order of chronology is the 
Septem contra Thebas, supposed to be the centre of 
n trilogy, of which the (Edipus and the Eleusinians 
would be the first and third. This is, perhaps, the 

* Sec Paley, quoted above. 



SEPTEM CONTRA THEBAS, PROMETHEUS. 73 

least poetical of all the plays of ^Eschylus ; but in 
dramatic merit, though not equal to the Orestea, 
where the form of tragedy had become fully deve- 
loped, it is superior to either the Persse or the Pro- 
metheus Vinctus. That this play should have been 
so great a favourite with the ancients is curious; for, 
though a spirit-stirring melodrama, it is undoubtedly 
the most bombastic of the author's works, while the plot 
is the simplest. The determination of Eteocles is the 
turning point of the whole; and this is artfully man- 
aged. The political opinions of JEschylus are thought 
by Miiller to be exhibited in this play by the character 
of Amphiaraus*, the sp/cos acrcfraXss being intended 
by the poet to ridicule the fortification of Athens, 
the favourite scheme of Themistocles. " The chorus 
consists of Theban maidens, who act as mourners to 
the suicide brothers. Eteocles enters upon the stage 
alone, and addresses a body of Thebans (either in the 
orchestra, or as mutes on the stage), who represent 
the citizens ; they perhaps form the secondary 
chorus according to Miiller's theory. There are but 
two actors to the piece. 5 ' (Paley.) 

The Prometheus Vinctus appeared about the year 
470 B.C., though the exact date is very uncertain* 
This date is supposed to be ascertained from a 
passing allusion f to the recent eruption of Mount 

* S. c. T. 588. They peeped out, according to him, in the Persas 
in lines 347. etseq. 

f K0pv(f>cus 8' ev cwpcus iKpayfjaovrai irore 

ttotuuoI Trvphs odirTOVTes aypiais yvdBois 
ttjs KdkKiKa.p'Kov 2iKeAias Xzvpovs yvau 



74 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

./Etna. But as that took place as far back as the 
year 479 B.C., it is not very much to the point, as 
these lines might just as well have been written 
fourteen or fifteen years afterwards as seven or eight. 
The earlier date is, however, the more probable one 
of the two, as after B.C. 468 iEschylus was in Sicily, 
and we happen to know that the first play which he 
published on his return to Athens was the Supplices. 
The Prometheus is truly a sublime and magnificent 
drama. The remarkable resemblance which the legend 
of Prometheus most obviously bears to the central 
doctrine of divine revelation has been only slightly 
glanced at by Mr. Paley, and is not mentioned in 
Muller's otherwise admirable critique. Prometheus 
fell through the pursuit of knowledge; he is in 
bondage, as man is in bondage to sin ; the agonies 
which he endures bear no fanciful resemblance to 
the stings of the human conscience when goaded 
by remorse ; and he knows that one born from the 
descendants of his fellow-sufferer Io shall deliver 
him. The condition of his release is the death of 
an immortal, announced to him by Hermes in the 
following striking; words : — 

Toiovde /uloxQov rep/j-a fii) ri TrpoaSSKa, 

irp\v Ixv Oeciov ris Sidboxos rooy awu irovoov 

(pavy, 6e\r}(T?i r €ls apavyrjrov (xoKe'iv 

'hihr]v l Kvecpcuar a}x<p\ Taprdpov fidOr}. 1047-50. 

" The legend," says Mr. Paley, " which formed the 
subject of the Prometheus, probably belongs to the 
most ancient traditions of the human race ; but 
whether mystical and allegorical, or connected in its 



PROMETHEUS, SUPPLICES. 75 

origin with primeval revelation concerning the cre- 
ation of man, must remain undecided. There is 
much to to be said in favour of the latter opinion. " 
The other two plays which made up the trilogy on 
this subject, were the Upo/jirjOavs irvpfyopos, and the 
Ilpofir}6ev9 \vo/jl£vos, the latter of which may be sup- 
posed to have cleared up the difficulty which meets 
us in every page of the. Prometheus Vinetus, we 
mean the position of Zav9 as a fierce, revengeful, 
and inexorable tyrant. The school of theology to 
which ^Eschylus belonged, recognised in the empire 
of Zeus the commencement of a happier era, the 
reign of mildness and mercy, and, if we may say so 
without profanity, of " peace on earth and goodwill 
towards men," with which the plot of the Prometheus 
Vinctus seems strangely at variance. " We must 
suppose that, at the end of the piece, the power and 
majesty of Zeus, and the profound wisdom of his 
decrees, are so gloriously manifested that the pride 
of Prometheus is entirely broken. 5 '* Hermann, it 
may be remarked, entirely refutes the opinion of 
Miiller, that a third actor appears in the opening 
scene of this drama. Prometheus himself was repre- 
sented by a huge effigy, while the person addressed 
as /3/a in verse 12. is a mere mute, f 

We now come to the Supplices, one of a trilogy 
entitled the Dana'is, of which the other two plays 
were the iEgyptii and the Dana'ides. The trial and 
acquittal of the women for the murder of their hus- 

* Miiller, Lit. of Anc. Greece, ch. 23. t Paley. 



76 IIAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

bands formed the subject of this trilogy. We have 
already stated that the Supplices was written after the 
return of -ZEschylus from his first visit to Sicily; and 
we are probably not wrong in fixing the date some- 
where between 465 and 460 B.C. Miiller supposes 
that various expressions in it bear reference to the 
alliance with Argos, and impending war with Egypt, 
Egypt, B.C. 461.* But this system of determining 
dates is very apt to mislead. Of the play itself there 
is little to be said. Whether the chorus consisted of 
twelve suppliants or of fifty, is not very material. 
They fail to excite our sympathy in the slightest 
degree, though the songs put into their mouths are 
many of them uncommonly beautiful, and the speech 
of Danaus (1. 957) is perhaps as truly poetical as any- 
thing which -ZEschylus has written. 

The grand trilogy of the Orestea now remains for 
us to notice. Of all that has been written on this 
subject, probably M tiller's dissertation is the best ; 
but the deep philosophical speculations of both 
Miiller and Schlegel would be out of place here. 
We shall content ourselves with a few brief remarks 
on the various characters portrayed. There is a 
wide difference between the Homeric and .ZEschy- 
laean Agamemnon. The former provokes our hatred, 
the latter our contempt. The pride, injustice, and 
intolerable arrogance of the one, stand in marked 
contrast to the weak-minded and almost childish 
exultation of the other. Though we detest his 

* See Thuc. 1. i. 102. 104. 



THE ORESTEAN TRILOGY, 77 

murderers, we are not shocked at his death; for he has 
previously forfeited our sympathies by the sacrifice 
of Iphigenia. And though a cloud of gloom and 
horror and despair presses heavily upon us through- 
out the entire piece, there is no one individual in 
whose fate we feel much interested, except perhaps 
Cassandra. This is a peculiarity shared to some 
extent by Sophocles, but almost wholly thrown off 
by Euripides. The characters in the Orestean tri- 
logy are entirely subservient to the myth ; our 
real interest is in speculating on what the gods 
will ultimately determine to be the destiny of the 
criminals. It is the principle to which we look, and 
not the individual. All this, which is of course the 
reverse of modern tragedy, is signally conspicuous 
in the trilogy before us, and especially in the two 
first plays. In the Eumenides a ray of cheerfulness 
^and humanity breaks in at the last ; and from the 
solemn constitution of the Areopagus, an Athenian 
ought to have returned home with emotions of 
pride and joy. Unfortunately, however, both for 
.zEschylus and his country, such were not the 
emotions raised by the spectacle. At the time when 
this trilogy was exhibited, the democratic party was 
uppermost at Athens ; the Areopagus, with its an- 
cient privileges, was hateful to them. In spite of 
the efforts of iEschylus, the ancient jurisdiction of 
that court in questions of homicide was taken away 
from it much about the same time*, and the poet 

* This fact has been strenuously denied by other writers. See 
Drake's Eumenides, Introduction, part ii. 



78 IIAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

went a second time into Sicily, where, as we have 
before stated, he died at Gela, in the year B.C. 456. 
Each of the three plays which together compose the 
Orestea, is much more complete as a tragedy than 
any of his other works: the third actor has been 
introduced; and the plot is more regularly con- 
structed. " Though only the secondary character 
(in the Agamemnon), the chief interest centres in 
Clytemnestra. Subtle, proud, daring, resolute, and 
an accomplished hypocrite, she disguises a long 
cherished hatred of her lord — resulting from the sacri- 
fice of their daughter at Aulis — under the guise of a 
love-sick affection. The murder being perpetrated, 
she throws off the mask, and not only avows but 
glories in the deed, as an act of just retribution. 
With all this she is not the abandoned and shameless 
adulteress, but the deeply injured wife and mother ; 
not the merely vindictive and ferocious homicide, 
but the sophist who can justify, and the moralist 
who can reason on her conduct." (Paley.) This, 
however, seems rather too favourable a picture in 
the opinion of other writers. Orestes is very much 
a passive instrument in the hands of destiny. He 
displays, as Paley truly observes, very little vindic- 
tiveness towards his mother, and puts her to death 
solely in deference to the peremptory commands of 
Apollo.* There is something unpleasantly masculine 
in the character of Electra. She takes, too much 
after her mother Clytemnestra ; and we cannot but 
suspect that under the same circumstances she would 
have acted in the same way. The Furies themselves 



DOCTKINES OF ^SCHYLUS. 79 

probably typify what we at present denominate 
superstition, the unreasoning conscience which will 
frequently torment a man who has committed the 
most innocent and even laudable homicide. By the 
equality of votes at the trial, is signified, says Mliller 5 
"that the duty of revenge and the guilt of matricide 
are equally balanced^ and that stern justice has no 
alternative : but the gods of Olympus being of the 
nature of man, and acquainted and entrusted with 
the personal condition of individuals, can find and 
supply a refuge for the unfortunate who are so by 
no immediate guilt of their own." 

(The difficulty of ^Eschylus as a writer is of a 
wholly different kind from what we experience in 
Sophocles or Euripides. With these the principal 
difficulties with which we have to contend are those 
of construction ; in JEschylus the construction is 
usually simple. But there are several causes which 
conspire to make him on the whole the most obscure 
of extant writers. The first of these is the mystic / 
character of his religious belief. -ZEschylus was aj 
Pythagorean, and it is quite impossible for the un- 
initiated to enter fully into the spirit of much that 
he says on the subject of God, human nature, and 
fate. Secondly, he was by nature what we should 
now, perhaps, call a lover of the marvellous. He 
was a genuine believer in apparitions, prophecies, 
and omens ; and he loves to speak of these in the 
vague and shadowy language which their nature 
seems to demand, but which, as Paley says, is not 
conducive to the formation of a lucid style. In the 



J 



80 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

jfthird place is to be mentioned his love of figurative 
language — in which he surpasses all his contempo- 
raries except Pindar — and his attachment to equi- 
voques, which has been noticed both by Miiller and 
Paley, such as Sept. c. Th. 930. and 950. Fourthly, 
he is difficult (and this of course is the great diffi- 
culty to young students) from grammatical careless- 
ness. " Nominatives standing alone without their 
verbs, clauses cut short by aposiopesis, the frequent 
use of particles which have a force depending en- 
tirely on something to be mentally supplied, and 
anomalous constructions and unusual meanings of 
words, are also frequent causes of perplexity." 
I Fifthly, no doubt his grandiloquence and inflated 
epithets, though not a direct source of difficulty, are 
an indirect one, by fatiguing the mind and forcing it 
to stand constantly on the alert to discover some- 
thing more than is really meant. But the general 
style of .zEschylus, w r e mean his syntax, is peculiarly 
simple, and rather epic than dramatic, as any one 
may see who reads the purely narrative speeches in 
the Prometheus Yinctus, the Septem contra The- 
bas, and the Persge. 

The general tenor of .ZEschylus's poetry is well 
contrasted with that of Sophocles in the following 
passage : " We might almost call JEschylus the 
poet of the gods, Sophocles the poet of mankind. 
The one deeply studied the laws of divine action ; 
the other sounded the depths of the human heart. 
To reconcile the old law of inexorable justice w T ith 
the newer law of mercy, seems to have been the 



CHARACTER OF ^SCHYLUS. 81 

leading idea of iEschylus. To improve humanity 
by holding up to admiration the finer qualities of 
justice, fortitude under affliction, sympathy with 
distress, firmness in duty, and generally all practical 
goodness, was the cherished object of Sophocles." * 

* Paley. 



G 



82 



HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 



CHAP. VII. 

SOPHOCLES. 

Sophocles, the son of Sophilus, was born at the 
Attic dermis or village of Colonus, in 01. 71. 2., B. C. 
495. At the age of fifteen, he was selected, on 
account of his personal beauty, to be exarchus of 
the chorus which sang the poem in honour of the 
battle of Salamis. In his twenty-seventh year, he 
made his first appearance as a tragedian, becoming 
a competitor for the tragic prize with the established 
head of Athenian literature, ^Eschylus. The young 
poet won the prize, by the award, as it is said, of 
Cimon, with the play of the Triptolemus — a piece 
in which the Eleusinian hero is celebrated as pro- 
moting the cultivation of corn, and humanising the 
manners of even the wildest barbarians. Twenty- 
eight years after this event, Sophocles brought out 
the Antigone, the earliest of his extant plays ; and 
in consequence of the general admiration which it 
excited, he was elected one of the ten Strategi, with 
Pericles and Thucydides, for the ensuing year — a 
curious manner, as it would seem to us, of rewarding 
« terary eminence. In this capacity, Sophocles aided 
in carrying on the war against Samos, B. C. 440, 
431); and it was on this occasion that he made the 
acqu aintance of Herodotus, who was then living at 



SOPHOCLES, HIS LIFE AND PLAYS. 83 

Samos. The whole number of plays attributed to 
Sophocles is not less than 130. Bockh, however, 
reduces these to between 70 and 80, while Miiller 
thinks it possible that as many as 113 may be 
genuine. With this question we have little to do ; 
for we undoubtedly possess the best of those which 
he wrote. Of the remainder of his life, extending 
as it did over thirty-four years, we know very little. 
In 413 b. C. he was appointed one of the 7rp6/3ov\ot 9 
or board constituted immediately after the Syra- 
cusan expedition to devise expedients for meeting 
the existing emergencies. Two years after this, he 
gave in his adhesion to the plans of Periander for 
establishing the Council of 400 — a policy which, 
according to Aristotle, he defended on the ground 
of expediency.* The story related in Cicero De Se~ 
nectute concerning his reading the CEdipus Colo- 
neus to his judges, is said to be a fabrication. He 
died in the beginning of the year 405 B. c. 

The chronological order of his extant plays is 
stated by Miiller as follows: — Antigone, Electra, 
Trachiniae, CEdipus Rex, Ajax, Philoctetes, CEdi- 
pus Coloneus. Of these, the first and the last are, 
perhaps, the most general favourites. Yet there is 
something in the classic delineation of the female 
character by Sophocles, which is never wholly sa- 
tisfactory : either it wants softness, or it wants 
nobility. Chrysothemis and Ismene, Electra and 
Antigone, are all instances of this truth. Such a 



* ov yap fy tWa, fe\riw. (See Arist. Rhet. iii. 18.) 
G 2 



84 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

conception as Shakspeare's Queen Catharine seems 
to have been impossible to the Grecian dramatists. 
The nearest approach to that union of tenderness 
and strength which modern readers desiderate, is to 
be found in Iphigenia. For this reason, though the 
Antigone possesses rare and peculiar merits, we 
cannot help thinking it better suited to an Athenian 
than to an English audience. The description of 
Creon at the end of the play is, indeed, one of the 
very happiest efforts of dramatic art ; but his long 
conversations with Antigone partake something of 
the character of scolding, and prevent us from feeling 
all that love and sympathy for his heroine which the 
poet intended to excite. 

In excellence of plot the Electra is surpassed only 
by the OEdipus Tyrannus. There is, perhaps, a little 
too much resemblance in the machinery which brings 
about the premature exultation of Clytemnestra, and 
the premature exultation of Jocasta; but the art 
is almost equally admirable in both. It has been 
finely observed by Miiller, that a trait is introduced 
in the character of the former which would never 
have occurred to the mind of ^Eschylus, namely, the 
outburst of maternal tenderness when she first hears 
of the supposed death of Orestes, and which takes 
precedence of every other feeling in her bosom. The 
discovery of the lock of hair by Chrysothemis, and 
the damp which Electra throws upon her sudden joy, 
is skilfully narrated ; while the ultimate irapiirsTZLa 
of the play, turning as it does on recognition of 
brother and sister, is one of those few scenes in which 



ELECTRA, TRACHINLE, CEDIPUS. 85 

Sophocles has drawn upon that deep fund of pathos 
which he evidently possessed. In fact, viewing it in 
the pathetic light, we know not whether we should 
not be justified in placing the Electra at the head of 
his extant tragedies. 

The Trachini^. is confessedly an inferior produc- 
tion. " The play of the Trachinian women/' says 
Schlegel, " seems to me so far inferior in value to 
the other extant plays of Sophocles, that I wished to 
find something to favour the conjecture that this 
tragedy was composed in the age indeed, and in the 
school of Sophocles, but bj his son lophon, and was 
by mistake attributed to the father. There are 
several suspicious circumstances, not only in its 
structure and its plan, but even in the style of 
writing : different critics have already remarked that 
the uncalled-for soliloquy of Dejanira at the com- 
mencement has not the character of the Sophoclean 
prologues. Even if, in the general structure, the 
maxims of this poet are observed, it is but a super- 
ficial observance ; the profound mind of Sophocles is 
missing. But as the genuineness of the poem seems 
never to have been called in question by the ancients, 
and since, moreover, Cicero confidently quotes the 
sufferings of Hercules from this drama* as from a 
work of Sophocles, we must, perhaps, content our- 
selves with saying that the tragedian has in this one 
instance remained below his usual elevation." 

The QEdipus Tyrannus is one of the grandest 

* Tusc. Disp. b. ii. ch. viii, 
G 3 






86 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

exemplifications in all literature of the vulgar pro- 
verb, that pride goes before a fall : — 

" Tolluntur in altum, 
Ut lapsu graviore ruant," 

might have been said by Claudian with almost as much 
truth of (Edipus as of Rufinus ; but the pride of 
(Edipus is the pride of a noble nature, which abhors 
trickery and meanness, and which shrinks not one 
moment from encountering the awful curses invoked 
by itself. The utter impossibility of his being him- 
self the guilty person, which so clearly sustains 
the mind of CEdipus throughout the play, is tho- 
roughly in accordance with human nature in its most 
generous aspect. But this \ery sentiment is but 
too frequently the cause of the most fatal blunders 
in our judgment of others ; and it is quite in keeping 
with the known character of Sophocles, that the 
rebuke of this thoughtless though high-minded con- 
fidence should have been one of the objects which 
he proposed to himself in this play. It is not the 
self-sufficiency of the Pharisee which is here intended 
to be exposed, but rather that half haughty, half 
good-natured conviction of immunity from error, 
which frequently characterises good men. 

In this play the TrepLirsraia and dvayvcopto-fjibs or 
avcvyvcopicns of Aristotle are perfectly managed. The 
part of the herdsman is one of the most felicitous 
devices which fiction has yet contrived; and one 
of the greatest of English critics* has ranked the 

* S. T. Coleridge, Literary Remains. 



AJAX, PHILOCTETES. 87 

plot of the QEdipus Tyrannus among the three best 
with which he was acquainted. It is remarkable, 
however, that Sophocles did not obtain the prize 
with this drama, being beaten by one Philocles,* 

In the Ajax, Sophocles has approached much 
nearer to the ideal of chivalry than any other hea- 
then writer; nearer we say, for even here he has 
not reached it. The good knight would have chosen 
to die in his harness on some well fought field ; nor 
would the reflection that he was thereby benefiting 
his enemies have been deemed worth a moment's 
consideration. This is a defect in that otherwise 
glorious speech commencing at line 430., which we 
must always deplore. Independent of this deficiency, 
the Ajax is one of the sublimest compositions of 
antiquity. 

In his Philoctetes, Sophocles has attempted a very 
different species of composition. The interest is very 
little dependent on diversity of incident, but consists 
almost entirely in development of character. Neo- 
ptolemus, at first persuaded by the consummate art 
of Ulysses, and then reappearing in his natural 
character and refusing to be a party to the deceit, 
is the central figure of the picture, while on either 
side Philoctetes, with his touching patience and 
simple anxiety (in which every reader shares) about 
his vow, and Ulysses, with his calm, cold, sophistical 
reasoning, make up as finely contrasted a group as the 
imagination can require. I This, it is to be remarked, 



* Bockh, de Trag. Grsec. cap. xi. 
G 4 



88 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

is the only one of the extant plays of Sophocles in 
which the nrspLirirsia is effected by the deus ex ma- 
china, or intervention of a god. 

We now come to the crowning labour of the poet'? 
life — the serene and stately drama of the (Edipus at 
Colonus. As we have above stated, the story of his 
having read this piece to his judges, to refute a charge 
of insanity brought against him by his own son Io- 
phon, is now generally considered to be a fiction of 
antiquity.* But at all events we do not and cannot 
wonder at the effect attributed to the drama itself: 
a more cheerful and happy tone runs through the 
whole play than in the Eumenides of -ZEschylus. 
Even the opening lines would seem scarcely intended 
to excite our commiseration ; there is a placidity 
about them which rather challenges our envy, 
while the reply of Antigone to her father's first 
question as to what was the character of the spot 
at which they had arrived f , at once sheds a pleasant 
hue over the scene, and leads us to anticipate a 
happy event. The action of Pallas in the older play 
is here assigned to Theseus, than whom Attic genius 
never created a more gallant and noble character. 
The Furies, we must remember, had already been 
appeased; and their grove is pictured in that im- 
mortal song, which no man, comparatively ignorant 

* Theatre of the Greeks, p. 75. 

f X^P 0S & o5' Upbs, cos ad<f>* elicdtfcu., fipvoov 

h&(pv7)s, iXaiaSj auLireX&u, irvKvdirTtpOL 5' 

eaco kolt olvtuu eutXTO/xoDo-' arfi6vts. 

(Ed. Col. 16. 



(EDIPUS COLONEUS. 89 

of the language, can read without rapture. The 
whole play from first to last is calm and quiet. The 
aged king who had rushed forth frantically from the 
scene of his accursed pollution, has regained his 
peace of mind, and his self-respect ; he is tended by 
the most affectionate of daughters ; and he prepares 
joyfully to lay down his life under pircumstances 
from which lasting welfare shall accrue to the people 
who have deceived him. 

Such is the character of the last production of the 
last great poet of Greece. In the estimation of his 
contemporaries, Sophocles ranked high ; he was 
styled " the Attic bee." And the opinion put for- 
ward by Valcknaer relative to Plato's disparagement 
of him seems to have been satisfactorily refuted by 
Bockh.* His development of tragedy, by the addition 
of the third actor, has been already noticed ; and it 
must, we think, be admitted that his style is an im- 
provement on that of his predecessor. Muller indeed, 
professes to think it nearer to the style of prose than 
that of iEschylus : it is certainly much more artificial ; 
yet it would seem better suited, notwithstanding, to 
the requirements of the drama in its improved stage. 
The dialogue of Sophocles is on the whole more 
pleasing than that of iEschylus, and his metrical 
flow more varied and ingenious. It is to be observed 
that he was the first extant writer who introduced 
the practice of cutting off a vowel at the end of an 
iambic line — in imitation, it is said, of the poet 

* De Trag. Grsec. x.. ad Plat. Legg. p. 182. 






90 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

Callias; and according to Hermann, the GEdipus 
Tyrannus was the first in which this elision appeared.* 
But in the Electra and Antigone, both of which are 
said to be prior to the CEdipus, we do find lines 
of this description.! Bockh thinks this a reason for 
assuming that the Electra was of later date than the 
CEdipus, and that Sophocles brought out a second 
edition of the Antigone. The most numerous in- 
stances occur in the former — no less than five — 
which is a kind of evidence that our author was then 
pleased with a novelty which he afterwards partially 
discarded. But the argument is not worth much. 

* " Earn elisionem, Athenseo auctore, abjudicare debemus ab 
omnibus tragicorum fabulis, quae ante Sophoclis (Edipurn edita* 
sunt. " — Elisio. Doct. Met. pp. 1 6. et seq. 
w f El. 1017., Ant. 1031. 



EURIPIDES. 91 



CHAP. VIII. 

EURIPIDES. 

Euripides, the son of Menarchus and Clito, of the 
demus of Phyle in the Acropid tribe, was born in 
the year B.C. 485. The traditions about the mean- 
ness of his birth are now generally exploded, though 
we cannot help fancying that there must have been 
some foundation for the taunts of Aristophanes ; and 
yet it is said that while a boy, he was appointed to 
an office for which noble blood was indispensable ; 
also he was taught rhetoric by Prodicus, who was 
considered to take none but aristocratic pupils. His 
first play, the Peliades, was acted B. c. 455 ; and he 
first gained the tragic prize B.C. 441. From this 
period he continued to exhibit plays down to the year 
408 B. c, when he quitted Athens for the court of 
Archelaus king of Macedon : it was there that he 
died two years afterwards, B. c. 406, being, as some 
say, torn in pieces by the king's dogs. Scandal has 
been busy with the name of Euripides ; but the in- 
dustry of modern scholars has been successful in 
refuting the majority of those silly stories which 
entertained their grandfathers. In Hartung's "Eu- 
ripides restitutus," and in Keble's " Prselectiones 
Academicae," will be found a very sufficient rebuttal 
both of his having hated women too much, and of 



92 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

his having been excessive in his love for them. , Of 
the actual daily life of Euripides we know but little : 
that he was a diligent disciple of Anaxagoras is 
generally agreed ; he is said also to have been a great 
book collector, and to have first introduced a manu- 
script of Heraclitus to the notice of Socrates. 

It does not fall within the scope of our present 
work to subject each of his plays to very accurate 
criticism. Euripides is styled by Aristotle the 
most tragic (rpayLfccbraTos) of poets * ; and although 

* Poet. 26.: — Kal 6 Evpnrifiris, el Kal ra izXXa fx)] ev olKovofxe?, aXXa, 
TpayiKcoTarSs ye rccu ttoitit&v (paiverai. The following is the opinion 
of Quintilian, Inst. Orat. x. 1. : — " Tragoedias primus in lucem 
protulit iEschylus, sublimis et gravis, et grandiloquus ssepe usque 
ad vitium, sed rudis in plerisque et incompositus ; propter quod 
eorrectas ejus fabulas in certamen deferre posterioribus poetis 
Athenienses permisere, suntque eo modo multi coronati. Sed longe 
clarius illustraverunt hoe opus Sophocles atque Euripides, quorum 
in dispari dicendi via, uter sit poeta melior, inter plurimos quaeritur. 
Idque ego sane, quoniam ad prsesentem materiam nihil pertinet, in- 
judicatum relinquo. Illud quidem nemo non fateatur necesse est, 
iis qui se ad agendum comparent, utiliorem longe Euripidem fore. 
Namque is et in sermone (quod ipsum reprehendunt, quibus gravitas 
et cothurnus et sonus Sophoclis videtur esse sublimior) magis ac- 
cedit oratorio generi ; et sententiis densus, et in iis, qua3 a sapien- 
tibus tradita sunt, paene ipsis par; et in dicendo et respondendo, 
cuilibet eorum, qui fuerunt in foro diserti, comparandus. In affec* 
tibus vero cum omnibus mirus, turn in iis qui miseratione constant, 
facile prsecipuus." 

Compare with the above the following passage from Longinus 
XV. 3.: — "Eoti fieu ovv (pLXonovcoTaTos 6 Evpnrtdris, dvo ravTl irddr] t 
/.capias re Kal epcoras, eKTpaycpdrjO'ai, Kav tovtols, cos ovk old' e'l tktlv 
erepois, eirirvx^raros ' ov \x\\v ah\a Kal tous dXXais eirirideadai (pavra- 
aiais ovk 6.roXp.os. "WKicrrd ye rot fxeyaXo(\)VT]s cou, '6fxcos r)]V avrbs 
axjTOv (pvaiv ev tcoXXoIs yeveadai rpayiKrju Trpoar)vdyKao~e, 



CHARACTER OF EURIPIDES. 93 

it may be to a certain extent questionable how far 
this epithet be a just one, yet there can be no doubt 
that it points to a peculiarity which it is in vain for 
his detractors to gainsay. " He has approached 
nearer to the fountain of tears/' says Keble, ?* than 
any other tragedian." This, as the testimony of 
one by no means disposed to flatter Euripides, must 
be held to be conclusive. 

Critics differ very widely as to the comparative 
merit of the extant dramas ; on the whole we believe 
we may safely follow the judgment of the author of 
the " Prselectiones " in considering the Medea 5 the 
Hecuba, and the Alcestis, as his three most striking 
and accomplished performances. The Hippolytus, 
the two Iphigenias, and the Troades, have all been 
pronounced by competent judges as excellent. It is 
a controversy into which we are not careful to 
enter. The plays of Euripides present so few dis- 
tinct salient points that their merits and their defects 
are much alike throughout. 

We must never forget that Euripides was an inti- 
mate friend of Socrates; it is therefore idle to 
suppose that he belonged in reality to the school of 
the Sophists. If we remember that he was a pupil 
of Anaxagoras, we shall scarcely be willing to 
suppose that he doubted the immortality of the soul. 
But Euripides lived in an era in which simple faith 
was out of fashion. The old Greek world, during 
its summer of civilisation and literature, is to be 
measured by generations instead of by centuries. 
Changes, which in modern times are effected in 300 



94 IIANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

years, were then effected in thirty ; and it is scarcely 
too much to say, that there was at least as much dif- 
ference between ^Eschylus and Euripides as between 
Shakspeare and Coleridge. In the days of Euri- 
pides men were beginning to look at every question 
through the medium of metaphysics. He seems to 
a certain extent to have caught the jargon without 
the deeper meaning ; but, at the same time, he had 
his own peculiar views on the subject of the dealings 
of God with man. He appears to have thought that 
whatever was was right; but that, at the same 
time, it was totally impossible to fathom the ways of 
the Deity. This theory would s<*em to show itself 
in many of those half-sneering, half-desponding 
apophthegms, for which Euripides is famous. He 
felt to the full the significance of the well-known 
lines, — 

" In parts superior, what advantage lies ? 
Say, for you can, what is it to be wise ? 
'Tis but to know how little can be known, 
To see all others' faults, and feel our own." 

Surely the spirit of this is the very spirit of Euripides. 
Unfortunately, however, the mind which has once 
drifted away from the sure anchorage of traditional 
and hereditary religion, is but too prone to fall into 
worse errors than even the disparagement of intel- 
lectual exertions. Such a man is ever apt to sur- 
render himself to the illusions of a heated imagination, 
and, having deserted the wisdom of ages, is driven to 
lay heavier stress upon the wisdom of the moralist. 



I 



HIS RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 95 

Thus Euripides, too, only shows himself the advocate 
of expediency : — 

7) y\oo(T<r % d/JLc&jJLOK, aWa (pprjv ava>juiOTOS» Hipp. 

Such are the class of expressions which earned him 
an evil reputation among the more earnest-minded of 
his contemporaries, and which alone, perhaps, enabled 
Aristophanes to assail him with effect.* He appears, 
indeed, to have been in that state of mind, which 
kicks against the pricks of theological difficulties, and 
seeks refuge from their hardness, now in a kind of 
elegant pantheism, and now in downright reproaches 
against the divine injustice. 

aperij (T<= vino), ^vrjrbs &v, &€hv fj.£ya.v, 

afAaQris ris el &ebs, $j 5i/ccuos ovk %<pvs. Here. F. 346. 

If, however, we couple sayings like this with the 
humble and pious tone which Euripides has assumed 
in the Bacchas, it will, perhaps, after all, remain a 
doubtful question, how far they were the ebullitions 
of deliberate atheism, and how far an enunciation of 
the popular belief in gods " passionate, revengeful, 
and unjust," which characterised the popular theo- 
logy of Athens. 

Valcknaer and Hartung have laboured with con- 
siderable success to prove that Euripides had nothing 
in common with the sophists and demagogues of the 
period, whom, on the contrary, he always took every 



* Hartung, cap. iv. ad. init. We cannot agree with Hartung that 
the gibes of Aristophanes did Euripides no harm whatsoever, 



96 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

opportunity of chastising. And indeed there are 
a great variety of passages to be collected from his 
works, which would have been anything but flattering 
to the Athenian democracy ; e. g. 

whs Trphs avfipbs 

efe'Sv S'iktis. Suppl. 412. 

'Ayd/ie/uu/ov ....... ehai (ro<poi, Hec. 1169. 

oV/jloi KoafJLovcri. Ion. 832. 

ij iroKXa cro<p6s. Med. 579. 

Euripides, notwithstanding his defects, was the most 
universally admired of the ancient poets. Cicero was 
one of his most devoted adherents, and, it is said, was 
reading the Medea at the moment of his death. It 
is impossible, therefore, to doubt that many of his 
faults have been exaggerated, and many of his pe- 
culiarities misunderstood. His leading deformities 
have been reduced by Mr. Keble to four : — first, 
his oratorical frigidity ; secondly, his scepticism ; 
thirdly, his hatred of women; and, fourthly, the 
weakness of his choral parts. On the second of these 
heads we have already said sufficient. On. the third 
we can only refer our readers to the afore-mentioned 
writer Hartung, and the author of the critique now 
under observation, while the fourth we prefer to 
reserve to a future page. To the first we propose 
to devote a few observations. " Shakspeare," says 
Keble, " gives to his characters attributes, which 
are propria; Euripides those which are communia: 
that is to say, the grief of Medea and Iphigenia, 



CHARACTER OF EURIPIDES. 97 

though beautifully described, is still not different 
from the grief of any other women in the same cir- 
cumstances." This is a very fine observation ; but we 
are half inclined to doubt whether it may not be 
turned against himself. To illustrate what he means 
by oratorical frigidity, he compares the speech of 
Jason on hearing that he is deprived of his children, 
with that of Macduff, the latter of which he has 
translated into most elegant Latin. 

Now it appears to us that Jason would naturally 
express himself in a different manner from Macduff. 
In the first place, the relations between Jason and 
Medea, and Macduff and Lady Macduff, were com- 
pletely unlike. There was nothing at all domestic 
and innocent about the former. It is quite natural 
that a man who has formed a vicious connexion, 
should moralise in a certain artificial manner on 
its dissolution, or on its consequences. In fact, 
he would be the imperfect artist who should in- 
troduce the passionate lover of a Medea, lament- 
ing after* the same fashion as an ancient British 
chieftain. 

It is also to be observed, that to whatever extent 
the highly educated critic may object to this same 
oratorical frigidity, it is by no means an obstacle to 
great and enduring popularity. No ancient poet has 
written so many quotable things as Euripides ; and 
we find that among modern poets also, this is one 
great source of lasting reputation. Many of our most 
familiar English quotations are derived from second and 
third rate productions. Witness Addison's " Cato," 

H 



98 HANDBOOK OP THE GREEK DRAMA. 

Pope's " Essay on Man" (which, however great its 
merits, is scarcely great as a poem), and very many 
dramas of the 18th century. The sort of popularity 
which Euripides obtained is obtainable by any one 
who writes for the masses. He " sought," says 
Keble, "to bring poetry down to common life, as 
Socrates did philosophy ;" but he sought it in a totally 
different manner. Socrates sought to state deep 
truths in a homely manner; Euripides, to state 
homely truths in an apparently deep manner. This 
latter is the secret of his popularity : common-place 
thoughts, put tersely and epigram matically, are what 
attract the vulgar; and Euripides has given us these 
sort of apophthegms on every conceivable subject 
interesting to humanity — birth, death, and mar- 
riage, — heaven, earth, and Hades — politics, poetry, 
and law, — on one and all of these subjects, some 
semi-philosophic observation is dropped by Euri- 
pides. Every young Athenian who declined the 
labour of investigating the mysterious utterances 
of iEschylus, or found no attraction in the deep 
calm of Sophocles, could still quote to his compa- 
nions such passages as this, 

ris olfiev el rb £t]u /LteV eari kqltQolvzlv 
rb KarQavelv 5e (fiv ; 

or again, 

robs &eobs %x° iV TLS & u 
<pi\ovs, api(TT7)v fiavTLiciju e^o* $6/j.ois, 

or else, 

. KaK&s £tjv Kpeivaov v) bavuv KaAais ; 



THE THREE TRAGEDIANS COMPARED. 99 

or, in nobler terms, 

itacri yap 

ce Ek\7] on. Koivbu fM erewer, ovx't- croi fxovg. 

These are but a thousandth part of those neatly put 
platitudes which would have naturally rendered 
Euripides a favourite in an age when writing was 
unknown, and when memory alone was depended on. 
A careful comparison of the merits of the three 
tragedians has been given us by Benloew, in which 
we think the palm is with justice awarded to So- 
phocles. In regard to the chorus, it is clearly shown 
that in this poet only does it occupy the position 
which the idea of the Greek drama requires, while in 
JEschylus there is still too much of the dithyrambic 
element remaining, and Euripides manifests in his 
monodies a disposition to return to it.* In Sophocles 
the chorus occupies its true place. It neither causes 
the action, nor shares in it (crvvaycovL&i,), but merely 
gives a kind of summary of each act, with a running 
commentary upon it. The canlica soluta were 
divided by grammarians into avofjuotoarpo^a and 
TrapofioLocFTpo^a, and even in Sophocles this had at- 
tained a distinct form and shape, under the name of 
hyporchemata (Trach. 205., cf. 693., Philoct. 394. 
827.); but there is a wide difference between these 
choruses and those of the same kind in Euripides, 

* " Atque velut a dithyrambo initium ceperat tragoedia, in dithy- 
rambo etiam conquievisse videtur, quippe quum Monodise, ilia re- 
ceptions tragoedise lumina, ssp-pe sine antistropharum responsione 
(awo\€\vfievai) proferantur." — Keble. 

H 2 

iLof.C a 






100 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

the former being of a tumultuous and sweetly 
musical character, the latter what would be called 
tyvoo/jLiKci, or, in modern phrase, prosaic and sententious. 
In the matter of metre the same superiority is justly 
claimed by Sophocles. In his choruses ^Eschylus 
inclines too much to the use of the dochmiac, Euri- 
pides of the glyconic. The latter foot is scarcely 
ever to be found in JEschylus, and was judiciously 
introduced by Sophocles to temper the severity of his 
predecessor; but Euripides runs riot in it. In the 
iambic metre there is perhaps room for greater 
difference of opinion ; we certainly prefer the easy 
and varied flow of Sophocles to the grand monotony 
of JEschylus ; but we are not certain that we prefer 
the versification of the former to that of Euripides : 
the sesquipedalia verba of the one are at all events 
infinitely more tiresome than the short syllables of the 
latter; but there are certain definite irregularities 
in his verse, which are as unpleasing to the ear as 
antagonistic to the rules of the Greek language — such 
as the anapasst in the first foot not confined to a 
single word, and the frequent transgressions of the 
ordinary rules of quantity*, a3 also the use of abnor- 
mal compounds, as also SvcrdprjaKG), aTaSioSpa/jbov/Jiaty 
evvaaexfia), k.t.X. 

In the matter of dialect, JEschylus is more fertile 
in Ionicisms, owing to the more epic style of his 
poetry ; Euripides, on the contrary, is more apt to 
fall into Doricisms, especially in his monodies. 

* We may instance yevva, Hec. 160.; ifiXov, Supp. 1101.; Tra- 
\ai6v, Elect 479. 



THE ALCESTIS. 101 

In the construction of his sentences, iEschylus is 
much the most simple of the three. He loves short 
sentences, and makes no display of dialectic. In his 
dialogues, many of his speeches have more the air of 
soliloquies than of an address to another person. His 
want of art is marked by the recurrence of such ex- 
pressions as rjfco) teal Karsp^o/xat^ /c.r.X.* : Euripides, on 
the contrary, is full of oratorical rotundity and dif- 
fuseness. . Sophocles is, in some sense, a medium 
between these two. If we were to seek to express 
his peculiarity in one word, we should say he was 
compressive ; that is to say, he endeavours to throw 
as much meaning into what he says as he possibly 
can— every word he uses is pregnant with more than 
meets the eye. In this way he sought to exercise 
the intellect of his audience. f The ancients com- 
pared Sophocles to the sweetness and strength of 
good wine : — 

ov y\v£is, ou5' vttSxvtos, aAAa Upd/jLvios. 

The first in point of time of the extant plays of 
Euripides is the Alcestis (b.c. 438.). It is said to 
have been originally a satyric drama added to a 
trilogy of tragedies, $ Upon this hypothesis, the far- 
cical elements which it contains become perfectly 

* The reader, however, should hear iEschylus in his own defence, 
by referring to Aristoph. Range. 1. 1128. et seq. 

f Marks of this intention are to be found in his constant use of 
crasis and the elision of the final syllable of a verse, by which 
means he avoided the use of many little words, which to Euripides 
was rather welcome than otherwise. 

% See above, p. 43. note. 

H 3 



102 HANDBOOK OF TIIE GREEK DRAMA. 

xitelligible, and the behaviour of Hercules natural 
and appropriate. The shortness of the drama and the 
simplicity of the plan, which requires only two 
actors, would convince us that it was not one of the 
regular tragedies. 

In 431. B.C. was exhibited the Medea, which in 
the opinion of many is the best of all the poet's per- 
formances. The character of Medea herself is very 
finely drawn ; and though the murder of the children 
is perhaps in excess of the legitimate bounds of 
tragedy, yet Medea's language is interspersed with 
so much that is touching and natural, that we are 
less shocked than might be expected : 

<pev, (j>€v, ri TrpojyeXare fx oiA/j.acru', reKPa ; 

The mother is here shown not one whit less strongly 
than the incensed enchantress ; and it is the union 
of these two characters which constitutes the great 
interest of the play. 

The Hippolytus, one of the best plays of Euripides, 
was brought out B. c. 428. The passion of Phaedra 
for her stepson is just one of those monstrous sub- 
jects, the adoption of which betokens the decline of 
the drama in any country. The play, however, is as 
good as it was possible to be under these circum- 
stances. The character of Hippolytus himself is 
beautiful in the extreme ; and his destruction through 
the anger of Venus, whom he had despised, inculcates 
a high moral lesson. 

The Hecuba is a play which exhibits many of the 
best and many of the worst characteristics of Euri- 



HERACLID^ SUPPLICES. 103 

pides's poetry. It is full of elegant tenderness ; but 
the characters are not well sustained, and the action 
is faulty. The sacrifice of Polyxena and the murder 
of Polydorus would have sufficed separately for the 
catastrophe of the piece, w T hereas they are here drawn 
in together, and seem to point to a second symptom 
of decline which was now beginning to show itself 
in Euripides, namely, the multiplicity of incidents 
which he crowded into his dramas. The Hecuba 
was exhibited somewhere about the year 424 B.C. 

The only interest of the Heracleidas is to be found 
in its political bearing. " The generosity of the 
Athenians to the Heracleidas is celebrated in order 
to charge with ingratitude their descendants, the 
Dorians of the Peloponnese, who were most bitter 
enemies to Athens; and the oracle which Eurystheus 
makes known at the end of the play, that his corpse 
should be a protection to the land of Attica against 
the descendants of the Heracleidae when they should 
invade Attica as enemies, was obviously designed to 
strengthen the confidence of the less enlightened 
portion of the audience in regard to the issue of this 
struggle. The drama was probably brought out at 
the time when the Argives stood at the head of the 
Peloponnesian alliance, and it was thought probable 
that they would join the Spartans and Boeotians in 
their march against Athens, about Olymp. 89. 3. 
B.C. 421."* 

In the Suppliants, brought out B.C. 420, we have 

* Miiller. 
H 4 



104 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

the first evidence of another downward tendency, 
that, namely, of relying for success upon scenic effect 
rather than histrionic or dramatic excellence. The 
burning of the dead bodies and the immolation of 
Evadne were probably conducted with great pomp 
and with all the resources of the theatre. There is 
supposed to be a political allusion in this play also, 
to the battle of Delium between Athens and Thebes, 
B.C. 424, when the latter refused to give up the dead 
bodies for sepulture. 

The Ion is one of the few plays of Euripides re- 
markable for the excellence of plot. Creusa, the 
daughter of Erectheus, King of Athens, and wife of 
Xuthus, had before her marriage become mother of 
Ion by Apollo. The boy was separated from his 
mother, entrusted to the care of an old woman, and 
brought up as a priest of Diana. Apollo, wishing to 
secure to him the sovereignty of Athens, persuades 
Xuthus, by means of an ambiguous oracle, that he is- 
his own natural son, begotten before his marriage 
with Creusa. The latter, enraged at the discovery, 
and also at the design of making a bastard king of 
Athens, endeavours to poison him. A recognition, 
however, is brought about between mother and son, 
by means of the old nurse ; and Xuthus, continuing 
in his delusion, receives Ion with joy, and the piece 
terminates happily. Ion is clearly an exception to 
the general tenor of Euripides's plays. Aristotle 
called him the most tragic of poets, not, indeed, 
meaning what we should mean by such an expression, 
but that his plays came nearer to his own definition 



HEKCULES FUKENS, ANDROMACHE. 105 

of tragedy than any others.* His dictum is that a 
tragedy terminates unhappily ; and many critics seem 
to have given themselves unnecessary trouble in ex- 
plaining why Aristotle spoke thus of Euripides, from 
not observing that he is only referring to the pre- 
ceding context. We should never lose sight of the 
fact that the ancients treated their subjects in the 
most strictly scientific way. Every sentence depends 
more or less on what has gone before ; and a word 
that has once been used in a technical sense is used 
so throughout the treatise : in the passage quoted^ 
the word "tragic" has only the technical signification 
given above ; and we should doubt indeed whether 
in classical Greek it ever bore any other. 

The Hercules Furens is characterised by the same 
faults as the Hecuba, namely, the double action, in 
the rescue of the children of Hercules from Lycus, 
and in their subsequent murder. The goddess of 
madness was represented on the stage in this piece, 

* See Poetics, ii. 12. The meaning of Aristotle here is well 
drawn out in an article in the Classical Museum, No. 1. ; we shall 
give the substance of it as briefly as possible. If we couple the words 
in Aristotle's famous definition of tragedy, viz. Si e'Ae'ov kcu <po6ou 
Trepaivovaa rrju rojv roiovrcav TraOrj/idrcoi/ K&Qapcriv, with the two fol- 
lowing — & &s 5' dirAuu zWzlv (po€epd iariu oaa ety' erepwu yiyvojuLeva fj 
lieKkovra iAeetvd eari' (lib. ii. 5. 12.); and not robs 6fj,oiovs iAeovo-iv 
Kara TiXiKiav, Kara tfOr], Kara e|eis, Kara a^iw/aara, Kara yiut) * eV iradL 
yap rovrois, fiaWov (paiverai Kal abr§ au virdp^ai. "OAoos yap /cat evrav- 
$a Set Aa§e?v on '6aa i<p>* avroov (poSovvrai ravr £tt' olAAcov yiyvofxeva 
iAeovaiv (lib. ii. 8. 13.) — translating (po§os, '*fear " and not terror, and 
KaOapais, " pleasurable relief from," we shall easily understand 
Aristotle's critique on Euripides. Neither of his predecessors 
wrote in a manner so nearly touching ourselves. 



106 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

and must have produced a surprising effect. The 
date of the Hercules Furens is about 420 b. C. 

The subject of the Andromache is well chosen. 
The widow of Hector, as the slave and concubine of 
Neoptolemus in Epirus, might have been worked up 
into a most interesting and affecting picture ; yet it 
is not an interesting play. The incidents are nume- 
rous without being complicated ; and the moral, if 
there be one, but faintly brought out. The misery 
caused by Hermione, doubtless, pervades the whole 
piece ; but it is nevertheless scarcely the prominent 
feature. In its political bearing it is a direct attack 
upon the Spartans, and seems to contain allusions to 
the circumstances narrated by Thucydides (lib. v. 
45.). The date of this play is about 418 B.C. 

The Troades, which was brought out B.C. 415, is 
totally deficient in dramatic interest, but was a mag- 
nificent spectacle. Some have classed it with the 
very best efforts of Euripides ; and that it contains 
some of his very best poetry will hardly be denied 
by any one. 

The Electra, the worst of all the poet's productions, 
was brought out about the year 413 B.C. The sub- 
ject is the same as that of the Choephoroe of ^Eschy- 
lus and the Electra of Sophocles. Schlegel gives us 
an excellent critique of the three plays, though he 
has hardly pointed out with sufficient distinctness 
the remarkable superiority of Sophocles, whose dis- 
tinctive excellence as an artist is nowhere so clearly 
manifested. Euripides has failed entirely. The cha- 
racters of iEgisthus and Clytemnestra are totally 



OKESTES, PHCENISSiE, BACCH^E. 107 

spoiled, and the tragic element completely eliminated. 
Was Euripides oppressed by a consciousness of in- 
feriority to his two great predecessors ? It is the 
only excuse that can be made for him. 

The Helena is founded on an old legend handed 
down by Stesichorus, that the Helen who crossed to 
Troy was an siScoKov of the true Helen, who had never 
left Greece. In Euripides she is supposed to have 
got no further than Egypt, and to be persecuted there 
by the addresses of the young king, from whom she 
is at length rescued by Menelaus. The Helena was 
exhibited B.C. 412. 

The Orestes and the Phoenissse are rather dull 
plays. The first was produced about the year 408 B. a, 
the second a very little while after. The subject of 
the former is the punishment of Orestes for matri- 
cide, by a decree of the Argive senate. Menelaus, 
who ought to have rescued him, deserts him ; 
Helen, whom he threatens to slay, is taken up to 
Heaven ; and Hermione, whom he seeks to kill in 
her place, is given to him as wife by the Dioscuri, 
who promise to deliver Orestes from the matricidal 
curse. The PhcenissiB is full of incident, but palls 
from its sameness and the absence of anything like 
plot. The opening scene is fine ; but we care little 
for the character of Antigone in the hands of 
Euripides. 

The Bacchge, a play not represented till after the 
author's death, is one of his most interesting works, 
from the fact that it seems to betoken a change in the 
religious sentiments of Euripides. The subject of 



108 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

the play is the punishment of Pantheus ; and the 
poet takes occasion to utter many reflections on the 
folly of those who would be overwise in their own 
conceit, and deride what they cannot understand. 
The subject, probably, occurred to his mind during 
his residence in Macedonia, where the worship of 
Bacchus was prevalent. 

Schlegel and Muller differ as to the authenticity 
of the Rhesus; but the question has been so well 
argued by Valcknaer, that little doubt remains on 
the subject. The Rhesus is not only wholly unlike 
Euripides; but it also bears a curious resemblance to 
the style of Sophocles, which would seem to imply 
that it is the work of some late imitator of the latter 
poet. Scaliger has ventured, though dubiously, to 
ascribe it to Sophocles himself, principally on the 
ground of the resemblance of the prologue to those 
of the Ajax, Antigone, and the two CEdipi. This 
is, however, probably an erroneous view. It is 
entirely free from the peculiarities of Euripides — 
to Tpaytfcbv, to yvco/jLLfcbv, to aKpifies, to <y\a(f)vpbi>, to 
itcXsysLV KOtva /ecu Stj/jlcvSt].* 

We have purposely reserved to the last our 
remarks on the two Iphigenise, which are in 
many respects the most beautiful productions of 
Euripides. The Iphigenia in Tauris was brought 
out somewhere about the year 411 B.C. In this 
play, Iphigenia is the priestess of the Tauric Artemis, 
to whom the barbarous inhabitants of that region 

* Valcknaer. 



IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS. 109 

sacrificed all strangers thrown upon their coast. The 
recognition here between the brother and sister is 
so contrived as to be surprising without being un- 
natural ; and the deceit of Thoas is, according to the 
Greek view, not at all unjustifiable. The following 
remarks of Miiller on this drama are so good that 
we quote them in their integrity : ■ — 

" The poet, too, has taken care not to spoil the 
pleasure with which we contemplate this noble 
picture, by representing Iphigenia as a priestess who 
slays human victims on the altar. Her duty is only 
to consecrate the victims by sprinkling them with 
water outside the temple ; others take them into the 
temple and put them to death.* Fate, too, has con- 
trived that hitherto no Greek has been driven to this 
coast.f When she flies, however, a symbolical repre- 
sentation is substituted for the rites of an actual 
sacrifice f , whereby the humanity of the Greeks 
triumphs over the religious fanaticism of the bar- 
barians. Still more attractive and touching is the 
connexion of Orestes and Pylades, whose friendship 
is exalted in this more than in any other play. The 
scene in which the two friends strive which of them 
shall be sacrificed as a victim and which shall return 
home, is very affecting, without any design on the 
part of the poet to call forth the tears of the 
spectators. According to our ideas, it must be con- 
fessed, Pylades yields too soon to the pressing en- 
treaties of his friend, partly because the arguments of 



* V. 625. fol. f V- 26 °- foL t V. 1471. fol. 

/ 



110 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA, 

Orestes actually convince him, partly because, as 
having more faith in the Delphic Apollo, he still 
retains a hope that the oracle of the god will in the 
end deliver them both ; whereas we desire, even in 
such cases, an enthusiastic resignation of all thoughts 
to the one iden, in which no thought can arise except 
the deliverance of our friend. The feelings of the 
people of antiquity, however, were made of sterner 
stuff; their hardihood and simplicity of character 
would not allow them to be so easily thrown off their 
balance, and while t}iey preserved the truth of friend- 
ship, they could keep their eyes open for all the other 
duties and advantages of life." * 

The Iphigenia in Aulis was not acted till after the 
poet's death. The progress of the story and the 
denouement are admirable. The resolution of Achil- 
les forbids all idea of using compulsion towards his 
betrothed ; and the whole expedition is at a stand- 
still till at length Iphigenia announces herself as 
a voluntary victim — the noblest deus ex machind 
which ancient tragedy can boast. Her character 
has been objected to on the ground of inconsistency : 
her lamentations are too rapidly succeeded, it is said, 
by her resignation ; the woman too quickly becomes 
the heroine — ovSsv soi/csv rj Usrsvovo-a rfj varspa. 
We cannot agree in the justice of this criticism. If 
it is not unnatural for the same person to lament at 
first, and to be resigned afterwards, neither is the 
rapidity with which the change takes place unnatural. 

* Lit Ant. Greece, vol. i. pp. 376, 377 



IPHIGENIA IN AULIS, CYCLOPS. Ill 

Indeed, there are many instances on record of con- 
demned persons, who, as long as there was the very- 
slightest chance of escape, have spared no solicitation, 
and have given way to humiliating anguish, but 
who have nevertheless, when the conviction of their 
doom became certain, risen from the ground, as it 
were, in a moment, thrown off all appearance of 
terror, and assumed the cheerfulness of martyrs. 
Such appears to be the character of Iphigenia in 
Aulis, — in our opinion the nearest approach to a 
modern heroine to be found in classic poetry. 

In the Cyclops, Euripides has given us the only 
extant specimen of the genuine satyric drama. This 
drama, as we have said above, was usually a kind of 
facetious epilogue to the tragic trilogy.* The chorus 
consisted of satyrs ; and the adventures of the hero 
were always those susceptible of laughable treatment. 
The subject of the Cyclops is the story of Poly- 
phemus. 

* But see note on p. 101. 



112 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 



CHAP. IX. 

RISE OF COMEDY. — ARISTOPHANES. 

The origin of comedy is radically the same as that 
of tragedy. But while the latter took its rise from 
the more urbane and polished element of the Bacchic 
worship, the former sprang from the rural remains of 
the old and more homely ritual. This was in Greece 
undoubtedly the more ancient of the two, and, as 
more exclusively connected with the generative and 
fertilising attributes of the gods, lingered longest 
among the villages and woods, and in the hearts of 
the agricultural population. The Phallic processions, 
and the rural celebration of the vintage, contained 
the elements from which sprung the graceful produc- 
tions of Aristophanes and Menander. Although, 
however, the sources from which comedy arose were 
more indigenous than those which gave birth to 
tragedy ; yet there is no doubt that the embodiment 
of the former in any permanent shape was posterior 
to that of tragedy. The honour of being the first 
inventor of comedy is usually supposed to lie between 
Susarion and Epicharmus. The truth, however, 
seems to be, that the latter was the first author of 
written pieces, and therefore must technically be ad- 
mitted to be the first comic dramatist. The date of 
his birth is uncertain — it was probably about the 



EPICHARMUS AND HIS SCHOOL. 113 

year 520 or 530 B.C. ; and he was more than ninety 
when he died. The comedies of Epicharmus were 
parodies of sacred subjects, and partly also political. 
Plautus's play of the Menaschmi is said to be founded 
on one of the dramas of Epicharmus. Phormis and 
Dinolochus are the other two writers of the Sicilian 
school whose reputation has been preserved by their 
contemporaries. The first Attic comedian was Chi- 
onides. The titles of three of his plays have come 
down to us ; these were the "Hpcoss^ the Hspacu rj 
'Aaavpiot, and the Htco^oL A contemporary of 
Chionides was Magnes, from whom Aristophanes 
borrowed the titles of two of his plays, the Frogs 
and the Birds, and of whom he speaks in a compli- 
mentary manner in the Knights.* Cratinus was 
born at Athens about the year 519 B.C., and died in 
422 B.C., having more than once been a successful 
competitor against Aristophanes and Eupolis. Crates, 
Phrynichus, and Rermippus lived about the same 
time. The first was originally an actor in the 
plays of Cratinus, but afterwards turned author. 
Aristophanes speaks very highly of him in the 
Clouds.f 

Phrynichus was a man of inferior ability. He 
is ridiculed by Hermippus and Aristophanes. Her- 
mippus was a great opponent of Pericles; he 
prosecuted Aspasia for impiety. Eupolis was the im~ ' 
mediate predecessor of Aristophanes, and, with Cra- 
tinus, seems to have been looked upon as the leading 

* Line 518. f Line 537. % Hor. i. Sat. 4. l, 2. 

I 



114 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

man of the prse-Aristophanic period. J His comedies 
are very virulent ; but as he was a warm admirer of 
Pericles, no harm came to him during that states- 
man's lifetime. The time and manner of his death 
are doubtful ; and there is probably no truth in the 
story that he was thrown overboard by the order of 
Alcibiades on his way to Sicily in 415 B.C. 

It is a very common though by no means a uni- 
versal opinion, that Aristophanes is on the whole the 
greatest of Athenian dramatists. To this opinion 
we ourselves subscribe. The fact is, that ancient 
tragedy was in want of many materials which con- 
tribute to the formation of a complete idea of hu- 
manity. To love, it was a stranger * ; in its treat- 
ment of the relations between heaven and earth, God 
and man, it was hampered by a cumbrous mytho- 
logy t* the traditions of which it was as dangerous to 
neglect as it was difficult to dispose properly. There 
are marks of what might have been done. We see 
the outline not filled up ; the elements, but not their 
combination. J With comedy, however, this was not 
the case. With the position of woman in society it- 
could deal readily. Audacious reflections on the 
gods, which would have ruined a tragedian, were not 
only permitted but loudly applauded when issuing 
from the comic mask. The reason of this is very 
simple. Where the popular creed still retains a firm 

* A modern writer would not have missed the fine situation 
afforded by Antigone and Hamion. The love of Euripides is the 
navvios ipuos of Aristotle. 

f Edinb. Rev. No. 58. \ Ibid. 



ARISTOPHANES. 115 

hold on the minds of the multitude, such displays are 
not dangerous or perhaps irreverent. The religious 
spectacles of the middle ages are an instance of this 
point. Thus we see that Aristophanes stood on a 
vantage ground as compared with his tragic contem- 
poraries ; and if we assent to the claim which has 
been advanced in his favour, we are not so much ex- 
alting his genius as simply doing justice to his 
opportunities. 

Aristophanes, the son of Philippus, was born at 
Athens in the year 444 B. c. Of the rank and sta- 
tion of his father we know nothing ; but they are 
presumed to have been respectable. He brought out 
his first play, the Banqueters, B.C. 427, the following 
year the Babylonians, and the year following that 
the Acharnians. In 424 he brought out the Knights, 
and the' next year the Clouds, which obtained neither 
the first nor second prize. In 422 he exhibited the 
Wasps, in 419 the Peace, and in 414 the Birds. 
The Lysistrata and the Thesmophoriazusge were per- 
formed in the year 411 ; the Plutus in 408, and the 
Ecclesiazusse in 392. The date of the Progs is un- 
certain. The two last plays which Aristophanes 
wrote were called the JEolosicon and the Cocalus. 
The latter, it is said, approached so nearly to the 
standard of the new comedy, that Philemon was able 
to bring it again on the stage with very few varia- 
tions. Aristophanes died somewhere about the year 
380 B.C. 

Aristophanes was a thorough conservative of the 
old school. He hated all change, without taking the 

I 2 



116 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

trouble to discriminate between what was needless 
and what was necessary for the constitution. The 
evil done daily by the sophists and demagogues was 
so vast and so apparent, that there is certainly some 
excuse for the comedian, if he acted on the belief 
which is best expressed by the words " noscitur a 
sociis" and waged an uncompromising war with So- 
crates and Euripides, whom he identified with the 
doctrines of the sophists to the fullest extent. Pos- 
terity has rectified the error in one case and his own 
contemporaries in the other. " The taunts of Ari- 
stophanes," says Hartung, t€ in no way affected the 
poet's popularity : " and while later ages endorsed 
with gladness his fiercest invectives against Cleon, 
they have never ceased to venerate and to love the 
name of Socrates. There seem to have been three 
principal evils against which the mind of Aristo- 
phanes was violently excited; and we shall notice 
his comedies according to their bearing on each of 
these three objects of his hostility. 

Aristophanes, as we have remarked, was essentially 
a conservative, and he regarded the Peloponnesian 
war as essentially opposed to his party views ; he 
detested it therefore on this political ground. But 
the war was also hateful to him as affording oppor- 
tunities of eminence to the demagogues of that day, 
who possessed all the ambition of Pericles, whom 
they professed to imitate, without his ability. Iso- 
crates called Pericles u the greatest of the dema- 
gogues," not so much intending to reproach him as 
to show that he had initiated a policy which, though 



HIS POLITICAL OPINIONS. 117 

perhaps capable of glorious results in his own hands, 
became, after his death, the readiest means in the 
hand of the charlatan for deluding the people. It 
was this trade of political charlatanism that was 
odious to Aristophanes ; nor should we be doing him 
justice if we supposed that he did not anticipate 
many of those disasters which the war brought upon 
Athens, or understand that the policy of Cimon 
and Aristides was the one best adapted to her truest 
interests. The new hegemony which Pericles ad- 
vocated could only be maintained by force, and by a 
vast drain upon the national resources. The old 
one, founded as it was on respect for Athenian mo- 
deration and justice, would be less costly and more 
permanent, and one for which the allies would always 
be willing to fight against the aggressive ambition 
of Sparta. The present English policy of colonial 
self-government, combined with the established prin- 
ciple of non-interference on the continent, would 
very adequately represent the system which it was 
the design of Aristophanes to restore. With this 
object he wrote the Acharnians; a play which in 
point of literary merit stands considerably above the 
average in the list of his extant performances. This 
play was exhibited in the year 425 ; and in the suc- 
ceeding year he followed up the blow by a direct at- 
tack on Cleon, who at that time was the leading 
man of the ultra war party at Athens. The Knights 
is perhaps the most famous play of Aristophanes ; 
yet, as Schlegel well observes, it is doubtful how far 
it is the best. " It may be," says he, " that the 

i 3 



118 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

thought of the too actual danger in which he stood 
gave the poet a more earnest tone than was suitable 
to a comedian, or that the persecution which he had 
already undergone from Cleon provoked him to vent 
his wrath in a manner too Archilochian. It is 
only after the storm of sarcastic abuse has somewhat 
spent itself, that droller scenes follow ; and droll they 
are in a hio-h decree, where the two demagogues, 
the dealer in leather (fivpaoSsTrri]?), i.e. Cleon, and 
the sausage seller (aXXavTOTraArjs), by adulation, by 
oracle-quoting, and by dainty tit-bits, vie with each 
other in currying favour with the old dotard Deinus, 
that is, the personified people ; and the play ends 
with an almost touchingly joyous triumph, where 
the scene changes from the Pnyx, the place of the 
popular assemblies, to the majestic Propylsea, and 
Demus, wondrously restored to second youth, comes 
forward in the garb of the old Athenians, and along 
with his youthful vigour has recovered the old feel- 
ing of the days of Marathon." Cleon, who had just 
returned from his expedition to Sphacteria, Wets at 
this time so important a personage in the state, that 
no actor could be found to represent the character, 
which Aristophanes was obliged accordingly to as- 
sume himself, merely painting his face instead of 
wearing a mask. 

The next in chronological order is the Clouds, in 
our opinion decidedly the poet's master-piece. The 
device by which Strepsiades is made to repent of 
dabbling in sophistry, is a triumph of comic in- 
genuity ; and a better " silly old man " than himself 



THE KNIGHTS, THE CLOUDS. 119 

was never placed upon the stage. The wit is in- 
imitable, flowing in an exuberant stream, and never 
strained or unnatural. We know not if we should 
be far wron^r in classing the Clouds and the 
" Merry Wives of Windsor " together, as the two 
very best comedies which the world has ever seen. 
It is very well known that the design of the Clouds 
was to ridicule Socrate3 as the chief of the sophists. 
Modern opinions have been much divided on this 
subject. Some have thought that the latter deserved 
all the censure of the poet, and even more than he 
received ; others maintain that Aristophan-^ 
blinded by prejudice, and knew not of what he was 
writing. Of toe two views there is probably more 
truth in the latter than in the former ; yet we cannot 
go so far a3 the author of a recent life of Aristopha- 
nes * and pay a tribute to his honesty at the expense 
of his greatness. One fact is certain, that common 
sense was the distinguishing quality of the mind of 
Aristophanes. He saw that things at Athens were 
in a bad way, and he knew they had once been 
better. A set of men had arisen who pretended to 
regenerate the people by means of a novel education. 
Xow, whatever it was that these men taught fa 
question which it is out of our province to disease . 
it is very clear that they did the Athenians very 
little good. Day by day the latter were growing 
more irritable, capricious, covetous, and tricky; was 
it not natural that any practical man of the world 

* See Biographical Dictionary. 
I 4 



120 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 



would connect this deterioration with the teaching 
of the school of the sophists? and when Socrates 

came, living the same manner of life as they, perplex- 
ing the minds of simple people with a novel style of 
questions, and generally seeming to attach great 
importance to words,, it was equally natural that 
Aristophanes should have connected him with the 
sophists. The comic poet was not the man to make 
deep and sifting inquiries, any more than such 
a man as Pliny inquired into the alleged facts of 
Christianity, Had circumstances brought him into 
close intimacy with Socrates, we have not a doubt 
that the comedian would have found in him a kindred 
spirit : but seeing him only from a distance, and 
knowing him only as the friend of Euripides, it is 
not surprising if he classed the whole tribe together 
as impostors and pretenders, differing only in degree. 
As to Socrates himself, if we may trust the assertion 
of Xeuophon, we know that so far from corrupting 
the youth of the city, he very soon got rid of such 
pupils as Alcibiades, Critias, and Theramenes — they 
left him when they found out that he taught austere 
morality and rigid self-control — while, in regard to 
the physical speculations so ridiculed in the Clouds, 
the Socrates of Xenophon was so notoriously averse 
to those profound researches into the ficrscopa — or 5 
in other words, into the universe, the heavenly 
bodies, and atmospherical phenomena, which engross 
the master of subtleties in the Clouds — that he pro- 
nounced them to be a proof of mental aberration in all 
who, like Anaxagoras, were perpetually brooding on 



. 



RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. — WASPS, PEACE. 121 

such topics ! It is clear, then, that the poet fa 

-taken and misrepresented the philosopher; but it 
is not so clear that he misrepresented him because he 
was prejudiced, and because he was narrow-mind 
He did it because he was careless, neither seeing nor 
hearing anything in these men that should lead him 
to modify the opinions which be had always held* 
It waa the misfortune of his position that he could 
not discover his mistake ; but he was one of that 
class who are the last to be reached by any novel 
doctrine, not, we repeat, on account of their bigotry, 
but purely from their love of ease, r~:ablished order, 
and social refinement. 

In his play of the Wasps* Aristophanes exposed 
the Athenian love of litigation. This, too, of course, 

g a fine field for an attack upon the sophists : the 
aged dicast, who holds the prominent part, is 
excellent : but the play as a whole is scarcely equal 
in merit to the majority of those preserved to 

either is the Peace by any means equal to the 
Achamians, or the Knights. The subject, of 
course, is substantially the same as that of : 
former ; but the plot is not equally well sustained. 
The commencement promises fair; but after the 

"less of peace has been drawn up out of the well 
the action halts, and the sacrifices are spun out to too 
great a length. 

In the Birds, however, brought out B.C. 414, 
Aristophanes shines forth again in the full splendom 
of his comic genius. SchlegeL's view of this play 
i t. that it is just a '*' harmless hocus pocus, with a 



122 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

hit at everything," has not recommended itself to 
subsequent scholars; and for this there are two 
reasons. In the first place the old comedy was never 
merely literary ; this is a fact that cannot be borne 
in mind too constantly. It was mainly, indeed, a 
political engine ; and this circumstance alone would 
lead us to doubt any theory which claims for so 
elaborate an effort as the Birds a purely imaginative 
character. The second reason is to be found in the 
play itself; the characters and action fit so closely 
to those of certain politicians of the day, that it 
surprises us how the truth should have escaped the 
notice of Schlegel. In the previous year, b. c. 415, 
the Sicilian expedition had started, and Euripides 
had written the trilogy of which the Troades formed 
a part, in order to encourage the hopes of his coun- 
trymen. It was this delusive dream of universal 
conquest that the Birds was intended to ridicule. 
In Peistheterus, we have a union of Alcibiades and 
the Leontine ambassador Gorgias; in Eulepides we 
see the sanguine Athenian citizen. The birds are 
the gaping Athenian multitude, easily persuaded by 
a couple of designing adventurers to build castles in 
the air.* The elegance and brilliancy of this play 



* We are here speaking only of the opinion of Aristophanes. 
Had, however, Alcibiades been permitted to conduct the Sicilian 
expedition from beginning to end, it was " on the cards," we think, 
for Athens to have become mistress of the world. On the other 
hand, we must consider that Aristophanes knew the character of 
his countrymen, and felt that they had not the qualities requisite 
for conducting such an enterprise to a successful issue. But the 



THE BIEDS. 123 

have been universally celebrated ; it is a sort of aerial 
fairy temple, sparkling with the brightness of an un- 
clouded sun. The choruses are rich in poetic 
beauty, especially the short one commencing 

which is conceived in the very spirit of Ariel's 
" Where the bee sucks," — and which, with a very 
little change, could be turned into a translation 
of it. 

The Lysistrata, the Thesmophoriazusae, and the 
Ecclesiazusse, are not generally read ; and we need 
say but little respecting them. The first specified 
represents the desire of the Athenian women for 
peace, and the wretchedness occasioned by the 
breaking up of homes and severance of domestic ties 
which war produces ; the women effect their object by 
force, i. e. by possessing themselves of the Athenian 

material resources of Athens were not, we think, unequal to the 
task. (Cf. Arnold's Borne.) 

* We venture to lay before our readers the following Latin 
translation of this chorus : — 

Oh jure felix alituum genus, 
Quos bruma nunquam veste jubet tegi, 
Nee fervor iracunda solis 
Tela procul jacientis urit. 
Quin ipse multo flore virentibus 
Pratis, et amplis in foliis cubo, 
Quum carmen argutum susurrat 
Sole furens medio cicada. 
Brumam cavatis sub specubus traho ; 
Ludoque nymphas inter oreadas, 
Myrtique depascor corymbos 
Virgineos, charitumque flores. 



124 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

acropolis. In the next, by stealing into the assem- 
bly, disguised as men, they carry a vote ordaining a 
community of goods and wives. The Thesmopho- 
riazusa3 is written in ridicule of the misogyny of 
Euripides, and is wonderfully clever and cutting. 

The Frogs, by far the most interesting of the 
plays of Aristophanes in a literary point of view, 
represents a dramatic contest between Euripides and 
^Eschylus, which is decided in favour of the latter, 
who determines that Sophocles shall be his successor 
on the tragic throne. 

Aristophanes was as great a conservative in poetry 
as in politics, and probably felt as indignant at what 
he would call the musical nonsense of Euripides as 
any sturdy writer of our own times at the vagaries 
of the so-called spasmodic school. Hence the comedy 
of the Frogs, in which the poetry and the morals of 
Euripides are ridiculed together. He is defeated in 
a dramatic contest with .ZEschylus ; and when he 
appeals to Bacchus, who had sworn to take Euripides 
back to earth with him, he is answered in the spirit 
of his own maxim, " I have sworn certainly ; but I 
find I prefer JEschylus." The chorus consists of the 
shades of the initiated ; and the odes which they 
sing, though sometimes parodies of Euripides, are 
uncommonly poetical. 

The Plutus, like the Ecclesiazusae, is intended to 
ridicule Plato's Eepublic, and the new love of 
Dorian institutions, which sprang up at Athens 
after the Peloponnesian war. The unfair distribu- 
tion of wealth is its leading topic ; and in tone it 



PLUTUS. — THE CHORUS* 125 

approaches much nearer to the middle comedy than 
the old. 

The chorus was essential to the old comedy, as in 
some respects representing the public ; it can by no 
means be explained as a chance relic from the local 
origin of the elder comedy : a weightier reason might 
be found even in the circumstance that it serves to 
complete the parody on the tragic form ; at the same 
time it contributes to the expression of festal mirth, 
of which comedy was the most unrestrained effusion, 
for at all national and religious festivals of the 
Greeks choral odes were performed, accompanied 
with dances. The comic chorus at times transforms 
itself into such a voice of -public rejoicing; for in- 
stance, when the women, who are solemnising the 
Thesmophoria, in the piece thence named, in the 
midst of the maddest revelry strike up their melodious 
hymn, just as at the real festival, in honour of all its 
presiding deities. There is, however, one special 
deviation from the tragic model, — that there are 
often several different choruses, who come off and 
on the stage without any relation to each other.* 

The parabasis is the poet's own address to his 
audience, partaking something of the character of 
the modern prologue, but differing in proportion to 
the different nature of the comedy. It has nothing 
to do with the action of the play, but is a lively, 
forcible, and direct exposition of the idea of which 
the play is but, as it were, an allegory. This shows 
sufficiently that the old comedy was not primarily of 

* Schlegel. 



126 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

a literary character : there is earnestness about the 
parabasis — a provision that the play shall not be 
misunderstood — which would be quite unnecessary 
had the object been merely to amuse. So much was 
this the case, that the discontinuance of the parabasis 
is the distinct line of demarcation between the old 
and middle comedy. 



DECLINE OF GREEK DRAMA. 12? 



CHAR X. 

DECLINE OF GREEK DRAMA (TRAGEDY AND COMEDY). — 
MENANDER. — PHILEMON. — ALEXIS. 

Of the tragedians who succeeded Euripides there is 
little that is worth relating. When faith in the old 
mythology was dead, and when interest in the old 
traditions was lost, when the Upca/jbt/cal Tvyai had 
become little more to the Athenians than they are to 
us, their materials r or tragedy were exhausted. 
The tragic delineation of merely human passion was 
impossible where women were eliminated from so- 
ciety. Yet the tenderness and anguish of love was 
the only element capable of supplying the place of 
the awful, the sublime, and the supernatural. Tra- 
gedy, therefore, may be said to have completely 
vanished with Euripides. Of the names that remain, 
not one appears to have approached within a very 
considerable distance of the three great ones. Some 
of their more immediate successors and contempo- 
raries appear to have possessed a share of dramatic 
genius, as some of them more than once carried off 
the tragic prize ; but none of them possessed suffi- 
cient force of character to keep their reputation 
afloat, and the best of them seem to have attained 
little beyond the art of pleasing by pretty images 
and harmonious versification. Agathon is the best 
known of the number. He was a personal friend of 



128 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA, 

Aristophanes, who praises him in the Frogs*, but 
seems to have been an effeminate and delicate man, 
and to have composed poetry of a very similar de- 
scription. Xenocles, though abused by Aristophanes 
(Thesm. 169.), gained the tragic prize against Euri- 
pides, B.C. 415 ; and Euphorion, the son of iEschylus, 
was on one occasion victorious over Sophocles. The 
Alexandrian dramatists were mere rhetoricians. 
There were sevenof them, known as the Pleiades, — 
Homer, Positheus, Lycophron, Alexander, CEan- 
tides, Sosiphanes, and Philiseus. 

We have already seen that the characteristic feature 
of the ancient comedy, as it prevailed at Athens in 
the time of the Peloponnesian war, in the hands of 
Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes, was the free- 
dom and licence with which it criticised and fre- 
quently held up to popular ridicule and scorn the 
character and conduct of such public men as gave a 
handle to the poet's criticism. In this freedom, we 
think, with Horace f , lay its great merit and interest, 
At Athens, in the 8th century B.C., the comic poet 
fulfilled that part which in our day and country falls 
to the lot of the public press, — the censorship of the 

* 'AyaBbs itol7]T7]S Kal iroQtivbs rdls <pl\ois. 1. 84. 

f " Eupolis, atque Cratinus, Aristophanesque poetse, 

Atque alii quorum comoedia prisca virorum est, 

Si quis erat dignus describi ... 



multa cum libertate notabant. 
Hoc stabant, hoc sunt imitandiP 

Hon. Sat. i. 4. 1- 



MIDDLE COMEDY. 129 

administration both at home and abroad. Upon the 
whole, this showed a healthy state of popular feeling ; 
and we cannot but learn with regret that, at a later 
period, a law was passed which forbade the poet any 
longer to make living characters the subjects of his 
comedies. 

All attacks upon living characters ceased with what 
is called the old comedy. The writers of the middle 
sort contented themselves with venting their raillery 
upon the works of their dramatic predecessors. The 
period of the middle comedy is usually said to extend 
from about 400 b. C. to 300 B. c, that is to say, down 
to the conquest of Greece by Macedon. It is easy 
to see why this should have been the case. The 
period between the termination of the Peloponnesian 
war and the complete subjugation of Athens, was a 
transition state, in which, though much of her old 
exuberant spirit was gone, men had not yet quietly 
settled down into a recognition of the fact. The 
old feeling would be constantly endeavouring to 
reassert itself; and the reader must therefore re- 
member that these three kinds of comedy melt very 
gradually into one another, and that Aristophanes 
wrote plays belonging in reality to the middle 
comedy, and Alexis and others such as approached 
very near to the licence of the old. Philemon, again, 
is sometimes said to belong to the new comedy, and 
sometimes to the middle ; but, on the whole, there is 
doubtless sufficient difference between the three 
schools to justify the distinction. Athenseus reckons 
thirty -nine writers of the middle comedy ; but if we 

K 



130 IIANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

exclude Philemon, no one of them seems to have, at- 
tained any very distinguishing excellence. Both the 
chorus and the parabasis disappeared with the old 
comedy. Of the six writers commemorated by Cum- 
berland as belonging to the new comedy, Menander 
and Philemon are the only two that deserve any 
lengthened notice. It may be interesting to know 
that Diphilus was born at Sinope ; and we may as 
well add, that the last of all — the last poet of that 
wonderful Attic literature — was Posidippus, the year 
of whose death is not known, but who began to exhibit 
in the year 289 B.C. 

The new comedy was the comedy of manner, and 
differed in no material respect from that of Moliere, 
Congreve, and Sheridan. Philemon, according to 
Strabo, was born at Soli, in Cilicia, about the year 
360 B.C. ; he first began to exhibit plays in 310. 
He was some years older than Menander, and was no 
unworthy rival of that poet, though more frequently 
successful in his competition with him than critics 
seem to think he ought to have been. Apuleius 
says that, though his frequent triumphs over Me- 
nander are not to the credit of Athenian literature, 
yet he had a great deal to commend him. " Reperias 
tamen apud ipsum multos sales, argumenta lepide 
inflexa, agnatos lucide explicatos, personas rebus 
competentes, sententias vitas congruentes, joca non 
infra soccum, seria non usque ad cothurnum." Gellius 
also tells us that Menander used to ask him whether 
he did not blush at his own victories? The frag- 
ments of Philemon are, in general, of a sentimental 



NEW COMEDY. — MENANDER. 131 

and tender cast ; and though they enforce sound and 
strict morality, yet no one instance occurs of that 
gloomy misanthropy, that harsh and dogmatising 
spirit, which too often marks the beauties of his more 
illustrious rival. Philemon is an instance that the 
writers of the new school did not always abstain from 
satire on their contemporaries. He is reported by 
Plutarch to have taken great pains to circulate a 
comedy containing very severe reflections on Magas, 
tyrant of Cyrene, for which, when driven thither by 
a storm, he was presented by Magas with a set of 
child's playthings, having previously been touched on 
the throat by a soldier's naked sword, as a hint of 
what he might expect if he did not change his tone. 
He died at a great age, about the year 262 B.C. 

Menander, the son of Diopeithes, was born at 
Athens in the year B.C. 341. His father was one 
of the last asserters of Athenian freedom ; and it was 
in his defence that Demosthenes made one of his 
best speeches — that on the Chersonese. He was a 
nephew of the comic poet Alexis, and a pupil of 
Theophrastus the favourite pupil of Aristotle, from 
whom, possibly, he derived his love of philosophising. 
The remains of Menander, however, are not suffi- 
ciently copious to enable us to judge with much 
precision of his distinguishing excellencies. We 
shall probably not be far wrong in supposing him to 
have partaken to a large extent of the Horatian rj6o$, 
tempered by a considerable dash of the tender sen- 
timent of Tibullus. Comedy, in his hands, was 
comedy rather as dealing with every-day incidents 

K 2 



132 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

| 

and ordinary men, than as being either laughable or 
witty. Abundant wit and abundant materials for 
laughter his plays of course contained ; but such was 
hardly an essential or necessary feature in them. Of 
his fragments that remain, many passages are in- 
tensely gloomy and full of despondency, and lead 
us to see that the gay and handsome youth, the 
lover of Glycera and the " unguento delibutus " of 
Phaedrus, in no way differed from that class which 
is to be found in all nations at the corresponding 
period of their civilisation, — a class of men too 
thoughtful and poetical really to enjoy the life of a 
voluptuary, though, nevertheless, that life is almost 
the only one which their temperaments can permit 
them to follow under existing circumstances. This 
was scarcely the character of Horace ; but, if we 
are not greatly mistaken, this was the character of 
Menander. 

Menander is said to have been drowned in the 
Piraeus in the fifty-second year of his age ; and, as 
has been well said, we may fairly imagine " that as 
great a blank has been created by the subduction of 
Menander, as would have been caused if Horace 
were altogether erased from Latin letters, or if he 
lived but in his Odes and, in a few passages ill 
chosen from his better works, in here and there a 
moral line or a few lifeless passages of his Satires 
and his Epistles." 



Aristotle's treatise on poetry. 133 



CHAP. XI. 

ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE^ TREATISE ON POETRY. 

Chap. I. 

There are different kinds of poetry ; but all agree 
in one point, that they are imitations, or rather 
expressions (juu/jirjcrsis). 

They differ in (1.) the means, (2.) the objects, and 
(3.) the manner of their imitation. 

(1.) The means. These are rhythm, words, and 
harmony. 

Dancing imitates by rhythm alone; epic poetry 
by words : some kinds of poetry, however, employ 
all three means. 

Applicability of the terms iroifiv and iroirjrrjs : it is 
not the metre, but the expression, that constitutes a 
poet. 

Chap. II. 

(2.) The objects. These are either virtuous or 
vicious characters ; and we may imitate by represent- 
ing persons as either (1.) such as they are, or (2.) 
better than they are, or (3.; worse than they are. 

Tragedy adopts the second, and comedy the third, 
of these methods. 

K3 



134 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

Chap. III. 

(3.) The wanner. This may be either (1.) by as- 
suming the character intended to be expressed, or 
(2.) by narrating his words. 

Tragedy and comedy agree in adopting the former 
manner. Epic and other styles of poetry adopt the 
second manner. 

Origin of the term Spa^a from &pav, the Dorian 
word corresponding to Trpdrrsiv. An argument hence 
derived in favour of the Doric origin of the drama. 
The same inference drawn from the term /cco/at}, which 
corresponded to the Attic S^oy. 

Chap. IV. 

Imitation or expression natural to man. Pleasure 
derived from the sight of sculpture and painting. 

Poetry first arose from spontaneous efforts (avro- 
a^sSiaarLKT)). 

Good men imitated noble characters; bad men ? 
inferior ones. 

The ancient poets, accordingly, were writers of 
epic (i. e. heroic) or of iambic («. e. satyric) verse. 

Homer the first writer in both styles ; his Margites. 

In course of time the epic writers developed into 
tragedians, the iambic into comic writers. 

Both tragedy and comedy at first extempo- 
raneous. 

Tragedy arose from the dithyramb ; comedy from 
the Phallic verses. 



Aristotle's treatise on poetry. 135 

Tragedy reached its full growth under iEschylus. 
His improvements. Those of Sophocles. 

Gradual exchange of the trochaic for iambic 
verse in tragedy : character of the latter. 



Chap. V. 

Comedy imitates the bad, yet not as bad, but as 
ridiculous. 

Its early stages not known, neither who invented 
masks. 

Similarity between epic and tragic style ; their 
points in common, and points of distinction. 

Tragedy embraces everything to be found in the 
epic. 

Chap. VI. 

Tragedy defined as " the expression of a virtuous 
and complete action in pleasing language, employing 
imitation of several kinds, not narrated but acted, 
and purifying the passions by fear and pity. 
It must employ rhythm, harmony, and melody. 
It must also employ (1.) ornament (oyfni), (2.) music 
(/msKottouo), (3.) diction (\s^ts\ (4.) plot (/jlvOos), (5.) 
manners {f}0rj) ; and (6.) sentiment (Scdvota). 
Of these, 

Diction and music are the means, 
Ornament is the manner, of imitation. 

Plot, manners, and sentiment 
are the objects 

K4 



136 HAND-BOOK OP THE GREEK DRAMA. 

Some poets use all these six parts of tragedy. 

The plot is the most important. 

Tragedy is an expression of certain actions and 
characters. 

The plot is worked out by revolutions (7rspi7r£T6icu) 
and discoveries (avayvco ptosis). 

Manners next in importance ; sentiments next ; 
diction next. 

The other five parts are embellishments. Of these 
music is the highest, scenic decoration the lowest. 



Chap. VII. 

Tragedy is the expression of a complete action. 

It must be a dramatic whole, and must have a 
beginning, middle, and end. 

Beauty analysed, is magnitude combined with 
order. Its length should be such as to be easily 
grasped (zvgvvotttov). 

It should, then, be of such a length as to afford 
time and space for a natural transition from good to 
bad fortune, or vice versa. 



Chap. VIII. 

Dramatic unity. 

Unity not produced by taking the many actions of 
one character {e.g. Hercules going through his twelve 
labours, or the history of Ulysses). 

It is produced by taking one act, and making that 
the centre, and everything else subservient to it. 



_ 



aristotle's treatise on poetry. 137 

Chap. IX. 

Poetry does not differ from history, by the acci- 
dent of being written in verse or in prose ; but its 
real difference consists in relating what might have 
happened, not what has actually happened. 

Hence poetry more universal and philosophic, as 
relating to classes of characters, not to individuals. 

The traditional fables, therefore, which relate only 
what has been done, not to be too closely adhered to. 

The fable most important. It should not be full 
of episodes. 

The terrible an essential element in tragedy : de- 
finition of it. 

Chap. X. 

Plots are either simple or compound. 

Simple, where the event happens without revolu- 
tion or discovery. 

Complex, where it happens with revolution or 
discovery, or both. 

The event, however, should follow easily and 
naturally. 

Chap. XL 

The event of a plot is either a revolution {irspiiri- 
tslo) or recognition (avayvcopLcris). 

The union of the two methods is best, as in the 
CEdipus Rex. 

Various kinds of recognitions. 



133 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

All the above will excite the tragic feelings of 
pity and fear. 

[A third requisite of a plot is disaster (7ra0os).] 



Chap. XII. 

A tragedy ought to have (1.) Prologue, (2.) Epi- 
sode, (3.) Exode, (4.) Chorus. 

The choral songs divided into the Parodos, Stasi- 
mon, and Commos. 



Chap. XIII. 

It is essential to a plot that it should not be 
simple, but should contain some vicissitudes or revo- 
lutions. 

The moral effect of such revolutions : the good 
should not fall into ill fortune, nor the bad rise into 
prosperity. 

The hero should be one of the ordinary stamp of 
mortals, in order to affect the spectator more nearly. 

A simple plot preferable to a double one. 

Tragedy should have a happy event, though this 
is less popular than the contrary. 

Chap. XIV. 

Fear and pity not excited by the monstrous, but 
by combination of circumstances natural but not 
commonplace. 



Aristotle's treatise on poetry. 139 

E. g. neither fear nor pity is excited when one 
enemy kills another, but when a father kills a son, or 
a son his mother, &c. 

Apposite examples. 

The poet should adopt received stories, and invent 
his plot suitably to them. 

An act may be done either knowingly or in igno- 
rance ; a third, and the best, plot is when the act is 
intended, but where it is set aside by some discovery 
in time. 

Chap. XV. 

The manners* in a tragedy should be (1.) good, 
(2.) expressive of intention (irpoaipzo-is), (3.) suited to 
the characters, (4.) similar and uniform. 

The action should follow according to necessity or 
probability. 

The solution (kvais) of the plot should arise out of 
the story itself, not ab extra. 

Tragedy compared with painting. 

Chap. XVI. 

Recognitions f should be natural, arising out of the 
circumstances. Others arise from external marks, 
or artificial tokens, or from remembrance, or by in- 
ference, true or mistaken. 

The natural are the best. 

• See above, chap. v. t ^ ee above, chap. xi. 



140 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

Chap. XVII. 

The poet's work is to realise ideas to his spec- 
tators. 

In order to do so he must himself feel deeply, and 
sketch out his plot. 

His episodes should be suitable, and not too long. 

Chap. XVIII. 

Every tragedy must have a combination (Bsats) as 
well as an unravelling (Xvo-is). 

Four kinds of tragedy : the complicated, the 
pathetic, the moral, and the supernatural. 

The poet should be ready with each of these kinds. 

The Iliad contrasted with a drama ; other ex- 
amples. 

Business of the chorus to sympathise with the 
players. 

Chap. XIX. 

As to speech and sentiments, enough is said in the 
"Rhetoric."* 

The poet should be acquainted with these subjects. 

Chap. XX. 

The parts of speech enumerated and explained. 
Letters, syllables, cases, and sentences. 
What is a complete sentence ? 

* See Aristotle's Rhetoric, part iii. 



Aristotle's treatise on poetry. 141 

Chap. XXI. 

Nouns, simple and compound, proper and foreign, 
metaphorical and invented, extended, contracted, 
and altered. 

Examples. 

Metaphors of four kinds : — 

1. From genus to species; 2. From species to genus; 
3. From species to species ; 4. from analogy. 

Chap. XXII. 

Clearness and freedom from meanness the merit 
of diction. 

Metaphors, foreign, and extended words, keep style 
from meanness. 

Expressions of the poets criticised. 

The great point is to employ metaphor well. 

Chap. XXIII. 

Narrative (i. e. epic) poetry, like dramatic, should 
have a unity of its own. 

Homer judicious in not taking for his subject the 
history of the whole Trojan war, but in selecting 
one part and introducing episodes. 

Chap. XXIV. 

Epic poetry has the same parts as tragedy, except 
music and scenery.* 

■* See above, chap. vL 



142 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

The Iliad and Odyssey compared. 

The epic capable of greater extension than tragedy ; 
the heroic metre suitable to epic. 

Homer has done well in not speaking in his own 
person. 

The wonderful is suited to tragedy ; the impro- 
bable to epic. 

Precepts relating to poetic probability. 

The diction should be more laboured in the tamer 
parts of the poem. 

Chap. XXV. 

How to solve objections of critics. 

Error is twofold, accidental and essential. 

The poet must not invent things impossible in 
fact. 

Some objections removed by looking closely into 
the diction, metaphors, accent, punctuation, &c. 

Chap. XXVI. 

It is said that epic is superior to tragic repre- 
sentation. 

This accusation, however, relates less to the poet 
than to the actor. 

Tragedy is superior to epic poetry in many ways, 
especially in the following points : — 

1. It has every element which epic has, and others 
besides, while the converse is not true. 2. It has 
more perfect and concentrated unity. 






RHYTHM. 143 



CHAR XII. 

RHYTHM, — QUANTITY. — TRAGIC VERSE. TRAGIC DIA- 
LECT AND PHRASEOLOGY. 

I. Ehythm. 

1. Rhythm is the regular succession of parts of 
time ; and these are technically called Times. 

2. A stronger Time is called Arsis (raising), a 
weaker Time Thesis (lowering). 

3. A syllable in Arsis is said to have upon it an 
Ictus or stress of pronunciation, which may be 
marked thus, 

Of man's first disobedience and the fruit. 

4. Rhythms which, begin with Arsis are said to 
be in a descending scale : as, 

Ruin seize thee, ruthless king. 
ravra \ioi SiTrXrj' [jLspiiJLv afypdaros ecrrtv iv <f>psvL 

5. Rhythms which begin with Thesis are said to 
be in an ascending scale : as, 

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day. 

rjfcoo' vstcpoov fcsv6 ] fjbO) va koX ctkotov' iTvkas'. 

* The contents of this Chapter are derived, with a few alterations, 
from the Preface to Dr. Kennedy's Selection from the Greek Verses 
of Shrewsbury School. 



144 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

II. Quantity. 

1. A short syllable (~) is considered as equal to 
one Time. 

2. A long syllable (-) = (y^) = two Times. 

The rules of the quantity of syllables in Greek 
must be learnt from Prosody. Much assistance is 
afforded in Greek, as compared with Latin, by the 
existence of long and short vowels. 

III. Feet. 

1. Certain limited successions of syllables in 
Arsis and Thesis are called Feet. Feet contain 
from two to four syllables. The foot of two 
Times (~~) is called a Pyrrhic. 

2. The Feet with which we are more especially 
concerned, are those of three and four Times, which 
are, 

(a) Of three Times Iambus 

Trochee 
Tribrach ^^ 

(b) Of four Times Spondee — 

Dactyl -w 
Anapaest w- 

The following foot of five Times, (-^-) is called a 
Gretic. 

IV. Iambic Ehythm. 

1. The Iambic is an ascending Rhythm, and the 
converse of the Trochaic, which is descending. 

2. Iambic (and Trochaic) Rhythms may be mea- 



TRAGIC IAkBIC VERSE. 145 

sured either by single Feet, or by kiirohicu, Dipo- 
dies (Double-feet). Each SuroBla is called a Metre 

3. A poetical Rhythm is called a Verse. 

4. A Verse of — 

2 Feet or 1 Metre, is called a Monometer. 
4 „ or 2 Metres, „ Dimeter. 
6 „ or 3 „ „ Trimeter. 

8 „ or 4 „ „ Tetrameter. 

Note. — 1. An Acatalectic Rhythm is one which 
has its Metres complete in their number of syllables. 
2. A Catalectic Rhythm wants one syllable to com- 
plete its Metres. 3. A Brachycatalectic Rhythm 
wants two syllables to complete its Metres. 4. An 
Hypercatalectic Rhythm has one syllable beyond its 
complete Metres. 

V. Tragic Iambic Verse. 

1. The Verse chiefly used in the Dialogue of 
Greek Tragedy, as measured by Metres, is called 
Tragic Iambic Trimeter Acatalectic : — or, as 
measured by Feet, Iambic Senarius, having three 
perfect metres, or six feet. 

2. In its pure form it consists of six Iambi : — 

6 ira}al kKsl\vo9 Oi8 l c7rovs | KaXov^fis vos. \ 

(N.B. The last syllable of the verse is always 
regarded as long.) 

3. But, in order to give more strength, weight, 
and variety to the Rhythm, the Tragic poets ad- 

L 



14G HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

mitted a long instead of a short syllable in the first 
syllable of each Metre ; in other words* a Spondee 
may be substituted for an Iambus in the 1st, 3rd, 
and 5th Feet: as, 

«\V da^dXzi\a rrjvh dvop\6cd(Tdv [ 7rbXlv.\ 

4. The Iambus (^-) may be resolved in any place 
except the last Foot, into a Tribrach (^~), but care 
must be taken not to make the Verse weak or 
inharmonious by admitting too large a number of 
short syllables. Examples : 

Xlfjbsva} 8s Nav^irXlefibv SK\7rXrjp6)v x 7rXarfj.\ 
o 7a/) 1 [JLdicdpi\ds kovh} 6vsl\8l£oo ] TV%ds.\ 
dos fjLSV { Xe<yov\atv brc ] 0sois\ s^OlaWos onv.\ 
7rp09 ol/c ] cv ev\8vvbvWd$ svd\Xldi> 1 irXdrrjv.] 
rolav\rd /jlsv j rd& scrWlv d/jb\(j)bTspd l /j,evslv.\ 

Note — 1. The Tribrach in the 5th foot is not 
very frequent. 

2. Not more than one, or at most two Tribrachs 
should be admitted into the same verse. 

5. The Spondee (-— ) in the 1st and 3rd Feet 
may be resolved into a Dactyl (-^) : as, 

aspl ] 7r6Td\ral kcu) rtvsl | ravrrjy 1 8lfcrjv.\ 
ovto$ { <j)VTSv\si HaXo^ira rov | 8* v Arpsvs [ scf>v.\ 

6. The Spondee in the 1st Foot may be resolved 
into an Anapaest (^-) : as, 

lfcsTSv ] bfisv I crs TrdyWss ol\8s 7rpda ] rpb7rol.\ 



OESURA. 147 

7. When a Proper Name occurs which could not 
otherwise find a place in the Verse, an Anapaest is 
allowed in any Foot excepting the last : as, 

Msv£\d ] bs aya\ywv~^p { fMovriv \ ^irapTrjs? aTro.\ 



VI. C^SURA. 

1. By Caesura in Verse we understand the pause 
occasioned by the close of a Word before the close 
of a Foot. 

Note. — 1. The pause occasioned by the close 
of a Word and Foot at the same time is called. 
Diuresis. 

2. Hence in Iambic Verse, a Caesura can only 
occur after a syllable in Thesis. 

3. There are two principal Caesuras of the Iambic 
Trimeter: viz., 

(a) The Penthemimeral, after the Thesis of the 
3rd Foot : as, 

c5 TEKva KaS/iou |j rod irakai via rpocprj. 

(b) The Hephthemimeral, after the Thesis of the 
4th Foot : as, 

IfCTrjpioLS icXahoiGiv || shears fi(JbivoL. 

Note. — Elision after the Thesis does not destroy 
the Caesura. 

4. One or other of these Caesuras is considered 
generally essential to the perfection of the Tragic 
Senarius. Verses without Caesura sometimes occur , 

L 2 



148 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 






and may be justified by various reasons ; but they 
should be avoided by a young composer. 

5. The Caesura may, however, be sometimes neg- 
lected without inelegance in cases where before the 
Thesis of the 4th Foot a syllable is elided, which, 
had it not been elided, would itself have formed that 
Thesis. This is called Quasi-caesura ; as, 

&> GTE/jL/uLara ^rjvaa || s7r£K\(oa£v 6sd. 

Note. — The 3rd and 4th Feet are never united 
in one word by the Tragic Poets. 

6. If there be a Caesura after the Thesis of the 
5th Foot, or in other words, if the verse end with a 
Cretic, the Tragic Poets avoid a Spondee in that 
place. Hence such rhythms as the following must 
be avoided : — 

d>9 Srj SsSrjyfjLcu rrjv i/Jbavrov /capSiav. 

7. To the foregoing Rule there are two principal 
exceptions*: viz., 

(a) When the Thesis of the 5th Foot is formed 
by a monosyllable capable of beginning a sentence ; 

(b) When the Arsis of the 5th Foot is formed by 
a monosyllable incapable of beginning a sentence. 

Hence the following rhythms are admissible : 

(a) ovfc ovSsv vycs? src Xsyco twv opylcov* 
KaXXtarov r/fjuap elaiSsiv i/c j(si[jbaTOs, 

* This is generally known as " Porson's Pause : " the reader will 
do well to consult the canons which he has laid down upon the 
subject, in his Preface to the Hecuba. 



TRAGIC IAMBIC TRIMETER. 



149 



7rsccr6/jbsO' orav &s /xr) koXcos ov nrslaofjuau 
firjTpoKTOVOvvTas Kvpia S' r/S' rj/xspa. 

(J) a\\' 0)9 TayiGTa iralhss v\xsl$ fjbsv fiddpcov. 
olov ts pot raoS* s(tt1 9 QvtjtoZs jap <yspa. 
si fjLOL Xiyois rrjv oyfnv sliroiyt! civ tots. 
tt<o$ $>r)$ riif sliras pJuQov avOls /jlol fypaaov. 

Note. — Although we do not treat in this place 
of Trochaic Rhythms, it may be noticed that, if we 
prefix a Cretic or its equivalent to the tragic Senarius, 
there results the Trochaic Verse used in Tragedy, 
viz. Tetrameter Catalectic ; as, 

Ssvpo $rj I cr/csyfrai, psff rjfJLWv fxrjTsp o)s rcaX&s \iyco. 
top c E\svt]9 J TiaravTas oXsdpov 7]vtvv ripiraasv Hap is. 

VII. Scheme op Tragic Iambic Trimeter 
acatalecticj measured by metres and 
Feet. 



Metre 1st. 


2nd. 


3rd. 


Foot 1st. 


2nd. 


3rd. 


4th. 


5th. 


6th. 


\y — 


w — 


v/ * ~" 


w ; — 


w — 


w — 


W \J\J 






o3 






— ww 




i 








WW — 




to 

£ 


8 

£ 

I 







L 3 



150 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

YIII. Rules for the Management of 
Rhythm. 

Avoid (www) after (www) or (-^). 

Avoid more than two Feet of three syllables in 
the same Verse. 

Avoid the frequency of Feet of three syllables in 
consecutive Verses. 

Avoid generally a Diseresis* with stop after the 
3rd Foot. 

Use sparingly a Diaeresis with stop after the 2nd 
Foot. 

Use sparingly a Diaeresis with stop after the 5th 
Foot. 

Avoid generally a Caesura with stop after the 
Thesis of the 5th Foot. 



IX. Principal Rules of Tragic Prosody. 

1. The Ionic i may be added to Datives Plural in 
oi9 and ai,9 9 as Xoyotau 

2. The v s(J)s\kvgti/c6v may be added before con- 
sonants as well as before vowels, for the sake of 
metre, as slirsv rdSs. 

3. Hiatus of vowels is not allowable, excepting 
(sometimes) in the words av and t/, as sv cadi, ti 
ovv. 

4. Elision of diphthongs does not take place, but 
only that of short vowels. Except oi^ 6)9 for 

OtflOi 6)9. 

* See above, vi. 1. note. 









j 



ELISION, CRASIS, ETC. 151 

Obs. 1. Final i of the Dative Case is not elided; 
nor of ri 9 ore, Trspt. 

Obs. 2. The article is never elided, but under- 
goes Crasis, as tclOXcl. 

5. Prodelission (the elision or aborption of a 
short vowel beginning a word, after a long vowel or 
diphthong ending the word before it) is frequent in 
Tragedy, as firf '£ for firj i% — fioXas 'yco for fjuoXco 
eyco — oiov Wpdcf>7}9 for otov irpd^>r]9 — fxov *(j)sXr}9 for 
/jlov d^sXrjs — t^XO 9( Y a @d f° r T ^XV dyaOfj, &c. &c. 
The limits which separate Prodelision from Crasis 
are not very accurately definable. 

6. Crasis is the coalition of two words into one, 
when the former ends and the latter begins with a 
vowel or diphthong. 

The general laws of Crasis are, with some excep- 
tions, the same as those of contraction given in Greek 
Grammars. 

7. The principal Crases of Greek Tragedy are as 
follows : — 

(a) Crasis of the Article, 
o and a into a, as 6 dvrjp = avrjp s to aXXo = raXXo. 
o and s into ou, as 6 stti/SovXsvcdp == ov7ri{3ovXevcov 9 to 

iy/cdo/MOV = TOVytcdojJUOV. 
o and 7] into rj, as to rj/jiSTspov = drjjuLSTspov. 
o and i into ot, as to Ijioltlov = Ooi/jlcitiov. 
o and o into ou, as to ovoua = tovvoucl. 
o and ac into ai or a, as to alfxa = Oalfjua^ to clitiov = 

TCLTIOV. 

o and av into av } as o clvtos = civtos, to clvto == 

TaUTO. 

L 4 



152 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

and 01 into co, as 6 olfypos = wtypos. 

i] and a into a, as ?) dpsrr/ = dpeTrj, rf) dpsrfj = 

rapsTj). 
i) and 5 into 77, as 77 sv as (3 sea = rjvaifisia, rfj lp% = 

oy and a into a, as rov dvhpos — Tai'Spos', tou clvtov = 

• TauVou. 
01/ and s or into ov, as rov sfxov = tov/jlov, tov 

OV£l8oV9 = TOVVslSoVS. 

ou and 77 into 77, as tou rfklov = OrfXiov. 

ov and ou into ou, as tou ovpavov = rovpavov. 

ay and a into to, as w ava% = &val~. 

a) and a into a, as tw dva/crt = TavcucTi, tw aurw = 

ravrw. 
ft) and s or o into ft), as tg3 JyU/cS = too jaw, tg3 ovstpco = 

Tft)Z>£tJoft). 

« and 6 into ft), as toj Ijiarlcp = dcpfiarlcp. 
ai or 06 and a into a, as or avSpss = avSpes, ai dpsral 
= apsrai, ol avrol = avroL 

01 and s into ou, as ol s/jlol = ov/jloi, 6 sv = ou^. 
at and £ into at, as at sKfcXrjalat = alfCfcXTjalai. 

a and a, 5, or at into a, as ra aWa = rdXXa, rd 

avrd = ravrdy rd sic = rate, ra aiayjpa = 

Tjio-xpd. 
a and 0, ft), ot, or ou into ft), as ra oirXa = 6&irXa, rd 

covia = TftVta, Ta olt,vpd = TQ)£vpd, rd ovpdvia 

= roopdvia. 
Obs. The Crasis of the Article with srspos is 
peculiar : — 

Sing. drepo9 } drspa, Oarspov, Bdrspov, Bdrspw, 
Odrspa. Plur. arspot, arspcu, Odrspa. 



CRASIS, ETC. 153 

(b) Crasis of kcll : — 

Before a, ai 9 av 9 zi 9 sv, i, rj 9 ol 9 ov 9 v 9 (o 9 the crasis 
of teal is formed by striking out cll 9 as KayaQb$ 9 
Kal<jyyvr] 9 kclvtos, ksls 9 ksv0vs 9 xjlXscos, r xf) 9 %ol 9 kov, 
j(yiTsp 9 %&tlvl. But teal slra — Kara. 
kcll and s into kcl (or %a) 9 as kclI stl = kcltl 9 kcll 

srspos = xarspos. 
kcli and o into kco (or %(#), as /eal o£u = kg)%v 9 kcl\ oaa 

= %&cra. 
. (c) The few instances of Crasis which occur 
in other words besides the above, follow for the most 
part the rules already given : as, 

iyoD 618a = iya>Sa 9 rot apa = rapa 9 rot av = rav 9 /jlol 
iari = /jlovcttL 

7. Synecphonesis (or the metrical coalition of two 
syllables in different words without a formal crasis) 
sometimes occurs in Tragedy. The principal instances 

are, rj ov 9 jjurj ov 9 sttbI ov 9 /jltj elhsvaL 9 iyoo oxj 9 

iy<o slfu. Here the beginner should adopt only such 
examples as rest on positive authority, and venture 
but rarely on analogies of his own drawing. 

8. Synizesis (or the metrical coalition of two syl- 
lables in the same word without a formal contraction) 
sometimes occurs : for instance 

so>, as ttoXscos, 'AfjLfadpBcos, vol: as Bvolv. 

But the most frequent example is the word 6sos 9 
which may be used as a monosyllable in any of its 
cases. 

9. A short vowel becomes long before — 



154 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

(a) a double consonant ; 

(b) two mute consonants ; 

(c) two liquid consonants; 

(d) {Jfi, (3v, y[M y yi/, $v ; 

(e) a combined with any other consonant. 

10. A short vowel is common before 

/3X, /3p, 7X5 Jpy S//,, Spy 6\ 6 fly 6v, Qp, Kk, KfJL, kv 9 

Kpy 7rX, 7T/JL, TTV, TTp, t\, TJUL, TV, Tp, <f)k, (pfJb, <pV, 

<pp. But a short vowel at the end of a word is 
seldom made long before any of these positions ex- 
cepting /3X, 7X5 and $p. 

11. A short vowel in Arsis at the end of a word 
may be lengthened by an initial p : as, 

£1$ I S/jLS I pSTTOV. 

12. The interjections fad, alai and ehv, sometimes 
occur extra metrum. 

13. TLtoXls may be used for 7roXts to lengthen a 
preceding short vowel. 

14. I is common in \iav 9 lao/mai, larpos, opvis, 
long in ofas, ocjilv, kovls. kovlv. 

15. Ot is common in itolsco, rocoaSs, toiovtos, olos. 

16. The final a may be lengthened in accus. of 
words in em, as fiaatXsd. 

17. f HyL6t^ vplv, may shorten the 1 by being written 
as oxytone instead of perispomenon, as rjfuv, vjjliv. 

X. Dialect and Phraseology. 

1. The Tragic dialogue exhibits a measured and 
severe dignity of style, equally removed from the 



^ 



TRAGIC DIALECT AND PHRASEOLOGY. 155 

colloquial looseness of Comedy and the daring ex- 
cursiveness of Lyric poetry. Among many features 
common to a good prose style, it also contains 
numerous forms and phrases of a purely poetic 
character. 

2. The Dialect is the Middle Attic, like that of 
Thueydides, The Augment must therefore be always 
kept, the forms in acr preferred to those in tt 9 and 
the contracted forms only, with few exceptions, must 
be used. 

3. Nevertheless some Ionic or Epic forms are used 
in Tragedy, as %slvo9, jjlovvos, aid, Spytcss, ^soraos 9 
%6rj, spos, ovvofia, jovvara, Sovpt, iroWo?, slXiaaco, 
sive/ca, ovvsfca, the uncontracted forms voo9, phOpov, 
svpoos, and the gen. sos for sco9, as 7roXso9. 

4. And some Doric forms : as ' K6dva, Sapo?, s/ean, 
tcvvayos, iroBayo^ Xo^ayo9, 67raSo9, icdpavov, apaps, 
yd/no po9, yairoTos. Also the .ZEolic forms irzhapcrios, 

7TsSdop09 } 7rs8ai%fjLL09, {l(l(TGCQV. 

5. Note the following forms, as belonging to 
Tragedy : — 

(a) sco9 for aos, as Xsco9 for Xao9, vsco9 for vao9 9 
lXsco9 for iXao9, MsvsXs(09 for MsvsXao9. 

(b) NaOs. Gen. vao9, vr}09, or vsd)9. Dat. vat or 
vrjL Ace. vavv, vr\a or via. Plur. Norn. 
vas9, vr]S9, or vai)9. Gen* vaoov, vrjoov or vs&v. 
Dat. vavcrL Ace. vr)a9, vsa9, or vav9. 

(c) fedpa. Gen. Kparo9. Dat. xparL Ace. to 
or tov fcpara, or to /capa. Plur. Nom. tedpa. 
Gen. fcparwv. Ace. Kapa or Kpara9» 

(d) yovv. Gen. <yovaro9. Plur. Nom. yovaTa 



156 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

and youvara. Gen. yovdrcov, yovvdrcov, and 
ryovvcov. • 

(e) 'AttoWcov. Ace. 'AiroWcova and 'AitqWg), 
(/) y, Aprj9. Gen. "Apso*. Dat. "Apei. Ace. 

if Aprjv and "Ap?;. 
(^) Sopu. Gen. 8opo9. Dat. Sop/. Ion. 8ovpl. 

(A) %£^p. Gen. x Si P° s or X £ P° 9 > & c# 
(z) zw, cr^>f, him, her, or them ; kbIvos for £/ea- 
z/os; crf^fv for <7o0; otov, 6tg) 9 otols for 

OVTLV09 9 &tlVl 9 019TKTI. 

(k) si for rj in the 2nd Persons Sing. Pres. and 
Fut. Mid. and Pass. — as Bovksi for ftovXrj, 
otyei for oyfry, 

(I) rjaOa for r/9 9 from sl/xL 

(m) -ovtcov for -sreocrav, in 3rd Pers. Plur. Im- 
perat. Pres. Act. ; -aOcov for -a6(oaav in 3rd 
Pers. Plur. Imper. Pres. Mid. and Pass. — 
as <ye\(bvTcov for yskdr(oaav 9 acfxupslcOav for 
acjxupelaOcocrav. 

(n) soifca, Plur. solj/ulsv, si^aat. 

(0) ol8a 9 ol8a,9 9 and olo-0a, ol8s 9 carov 9 icr/iev, 
liars, caaai, — ca0t 9 sl8sirjv 9 sl8a> 9 si8spai 9 el8d)9. 
— f}8rj or y8scv 9 fj8sc9 or fj8rja6a 9 J]8sl or 
fj8siv 9 rjarov 9 fjGTr]v 9 f)8sifizv or r}a/jLev 9 fjars 9 
rj8s(rap or rjcrav. Fut. scco/icu* 

(p) Attic Futures in w contracted from v acrc», 
fo-ft), oaco (if the antepenultima is also short) 
as o"%s8a) (a^s8a9 9 a^s8a 9 &c.) /ca\cb (icaksfc, 
tca\sl) 9 6/jbo) (d/jLovjuLat). And in ico from 
Futures in icrco, as oIktlco 9 sl9 9 ei 9 &c. 

(?) &v f° r °"^^ ^ ^ or s ^ 9 9 zero) for glVfi), m for 
hv 9 8ial 9 viral for 8cd 9 virb. 



TRAGIC PHRASEOLOGY. 157 

(r) £v6i>9 and sv0v, i^sXP LS an( ^ l Jb *XP l '> ^XP L9 an( ^ 
cuyjpi^ avOis and avri9. 
6. The Rules of Attic Syntax are given in the 
Greek Grammars. The following constructions 
should be noted as peculiarly Tragic : — 

(a) Genitive. — -1. With svsko, understood, as ra- 
Xaiva TrjaSs avfjbfyopas. 

2. After adverbs, as ttov 777s 1 : ttol yvcbfirj?: 
ovtq) 6pdaov9. 

3. After verbs of obtaining, as Tvy%dvco, /cvpco, 
avrdco, d/covco, k\vq}. 

Obs. But if a thing and person are expressed, 
then accusative of thing and genitive of 
person. 

(b) Accusative. — 1. Cognate, as svSsiv vitvov, 
KapmTZiv sSpas. 

2. In apposition to sentence, as — 

sOvasv avrov Tralha, sttcdSov ©prjtclcov arj/judrcov. 
fcrevco as, ttolvcls tov irarpos. 

(e) Gender.— A female speaking of herself in 
the Plural Number uses the Masculine 
Gender, as 

7rdrsp cf)povovvTco9 7rpo9 cf>povovvra9 svps7T£L9. 

(d) Adjectives. — 1. Often used adverbially. 

Verbals in rso9 and T09 very frequently. 

2. Compounded with a privative govern a 

genitive, as d\v7ro9 aT7}9 } d^avaT09 sy%ov9 9 

and are used by Oxymoron with the sub- 



158 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

stantives from which they are derived, to 
reverse the idea which would otherwise 
be suggested, as fiios afiicoros, v\x£vaio$ 
avvfjusvcuosy /Jbovcra a/ubovaos. 

3. Limit a substantive used metaphorically, as — 

CLLST09, 7TT7JV09 KVCDV. 

4. Are used proleptically ( = ware slvai) as — 
sv(j)7]fiov, co TaXcura, /colfirjaov arofia. 

5. With Article, for a Substantive, as to gvvstov 

for avvscn?, to acocppov for acocppoavvT]. 

6. Superlative doubled, as TTpcoTcaTO?, 'scr^aT 

sa^oiTcov — ifkslaTov s^OtaTOs. 

(e) Pronouns. — 

1. 68s for adverb; 68' el/xl, 'here I am.' avrjp 

68s, < V 

2. TVs some one, = many a one, some person or 

thing of importance, some considerable 
part. 

3. Avto9 clvtop, frequently in juxta-position. 

4. Olos or oios ts = tolovtos &gts 'able to.' 

5. Mr] irpos as Oscbv understanding \iaaofiaL. 

6. fir) avys, understanding an Imperative Mood. 

7. Tai>nz, * in this way.' /ecu Tama, ' and 

that too.' 

'(/) Verb.— 

1. Verb of sense governing object of another 

sense, as ktvttov 8s8opiea. 

2. Middle Future in Passive Sense, as Xegofiai, 

TlfirjGSTCLL. 






TRAGIC PHRASEOLOGY. 159 

3. Imperative and Interrogative combined : olaff 

o Spaaov ; olaff cos iroirjaov ; 

4. Infinitive, in prayers to deities, with ellipse 

of zvypiiai) as, Osol iroklrac [irj /jle SovXscas 

5. Infinitive after adjectives, as fcakbs iSelv. 

6. Infinitive with to for wars. 

7. Infinitive used elliptically after cos, wairep, as 

co$ sirsiKaoai — &cnrsp slfcdcrac. 

8. Participle for Infinitive after oXSa, SsUvv/jll^ 

fyaivofjLai, and other verbs, as oov Seltjco 

(foiXoS. 

9. Participle in periphrasis with TV^ydvoo, Kvpsoo. 

10. Aorist Participle with s%co for Perfect, as 

TTTrfeas £%a>. 

11. sirrjvsaa, sSsccra, stckavaa, air zttt vera, oXSa, 

syvco/ca, SsSoptca, irscjovfca, used in a Present 
signification. 

12. Participles absolute, as in the following 

phrases : — 

COS OVKST OVTCOV (TCOV TStCVCOV <j)p6vTt%S Slfj. 
COS TOLVVV OVTCOV TGOvSs CTol fjL(l0£LV irdpCL. 

(g) Prepositions. — 

Note the following phrases : — dficjol rdpfisi,, 
irspl </>o/3&), 6 in terror ; ' — dv0' &v, ' where- 
fore ; ' — cos air ofJufxaTcov, ' as far as sight can 
judge ; ' — Si aicovos, 6 for ever ; ' — Sea Ta^ovs, 
* quickly ; ' — Sea airovSrjs, ( zealously, 
eagerly ; ' — Si opyfjs, c angrily ; ' — Sid tsXovs, 
\ finally ; ' — Si fydpas Uvai tivI, s to quarrel 



160 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

with any one ; ' — Sia BUr/s Uvea, tlvl, c to 
go to law with any one/ &c. &c. ; — sis 
X*i>p as s\6slv rivi, * to come to blows ; ' els 
fcacpuv, els hsov, ' in needful time ; ' — sis 
airaj; * once for all/ — i% dsXirrcoVy ' unex- 
pectedly ; ' — etc tcovSs, < under these circum- 
stances ; ' — if; ov, ' from the time when ; ' — 
i£ iaov, * equally ; ' — sic filas, 6 violently ; ' 

— sk Sepias, i on the right hand ; ' — i £ 
clttotttov, 'at an invisible distance ; ' — rvcjxkbs 
sk BsSopKoros, c blind j after having had eye- 
sight/ &c. &c. ; — iv Ssovti, is Ssov, * at a 
needful moment ; ' — sv vficv, ' in your 
power ; ' — iv ra^si, * speedily ; ' — iv ofiixaa^ 
6 before your eyes ; ' — sv hetvcp y € at a fearful 
moment ; ' — iv (adverbial) §s, ' and among 
them ; ' — iirl %vpov tv^s, iirl afxiKpas 
poirrjs, * in imminent hazard ; ' — iir s%sip- 
ryacrfjLspoLs, c when the deed is done ; ' — Jtt' 
apyvpq), iirl tcspSscri, c for a bribe ; ' — i$> 
vpZv, € in your power ; ' — iir oi/cov, ' home- 
ward ; ' — to sir* ifis, c as far as in me lies ; 

— tear rjfJLCLp, i daily ; ' — kclt apOpcoirov, 
* suitably to a man ; ' — irap iXirlSa, rrapa 
\6yov, c contrary to expectation ; ' — nrap 
ov&sv? ' of no account : ' — 7rpbs Oecov, * in 
heaven's name; ' — 7rpbs toviols, € moreover; 

— Tipbs Tavra, ' wherefore ; ' — Trpbs opyrjv, 
( angrily ; ' — irpbs rjSovtfv, ( agreeably ;' — 
irpbs fiiav. * forcibly ; ' — irapbv, 6 when it is 
in one's power ; ' — r xps<ov 9 ' when one ought.' 



FIGURES OF SPEECH. 161 

(A) The use of Conjunctions and other Particles 
forms too large a subject to be here introduced, but 
should be carefully noted and imitated by the be- 
ginner, with the aid of the " Indices in Tragicos 
Graecos." He will find that very few sentences in 
Tragedy begin without some connecting particle or 
particles ; and by diligent observation he will discover 
the shades of meaning in which they are severally 
used, and learn where and how to introduce them in 
his own compositions. 

XL The following Figures of Speech are in 
frequent use : • — 

1. Pleonasm. — avOts av — avdts av irakiv — 

8K0VTSS OV/C aKOVTSS — yvcora kovk dyvcora 

— av 6(p6a\fjuols opcov, &c. 

2. Ellipsis. — Yidpts yap ovts avvrsXr}? 7roXc9 

— TraTpos rs Kairb fjbrjrpo?. 

3. Periphrasis. — a. Verb with Object instead 

of a bare Verb, as ybviq^v sj^stv for fjLSfjLvr)- 
g9cll 3 GirovhrjV dsaOcu for <T7rsv8siv 9 fJbd^rjv 
iroizlaQai for jud^so-BaL, &c. &c. 
b. Substantives: as Bprjvwv oSvpfiol — rfkiov 
kvkKos — <yr}9 nrshov — ovpavo v dvarnvyal — 
reiyiayv TrzpiirTvyal — TTvpycov (TTS(f)dvcDjbLa 

— & kKslvov avrdSs\<j)oy y Yo-fJbr)vr]$ Kapa — 
'AataTidos yrjs ayfuia — irpodumov svysvh 
Ts/cvcov — irarpbs Kapa — to fjLrjTpbs ovofia 

— ^vvai[xov ojbL/jLa — cvbs fiiyiarov XP^l^^ 
&c. &c. 

M 



162 hand-book of the greek drama. 

4. Epexegesis, Anacoluthon, Attraction, 
Hendiadys, Zeugma, are also very fre- 
quently used. The student should note 
examples of these in the course of his own 
reading, and arrange them in his note book 
for use. Analogy may be studied, but it 
should be cautiously applied. 

XII. Chorus. 

(a) The Dialect employed in the Chorus by the 

Greek Tragedians is Doric* 
(J) The Metres employed are various; among 
them are the following : — 
1. Anapaestic. — {a) This originally consisted 
of nothing but Anapaests ( v ^~) ; but gradu- 
ally the Spondee and Dactyl came to be 
admitted as its equivalents, (b) It generally 
occurs in systems, each verse consisting of 
four feet or two metres : as 

y/cco ]| Sokcxfj? |j rspfia ks\\sv6ov || 
Stafist\y}rdfjLSV09 || 7rpo9 as Upo\/jir]0sv || 

(c) Unlike other systems of verse, it avoids 
Caesura as much as possible : each foot may 
consist of a separate word : 

SsafjLols | oXvtols \ ay p lots | nreKdcras | 

(d) In this system, what is called Synapheia 

* The reason for this dialect being used in the chorus may be 
found above, Chap. II. page 16. 






J 



ANAPAESTIC SYSTEM. 163 

prevails throughout: in other words, the 
quantity of the last syllable in each line is 
affected by the word which commences the 
next ; as the final a is long before air in the 
following, — 

ah ap8\[M)V i/Jbol [j /cat (piXo\ri]Td j 

<T7T£v8g)V — 

And again on the same principle, the final 
syllable is elided in the following, — 

irarpos *£l\icsavov j| SspxOrjr j Jcr/Sso"^' j 

r/ 
Oi(p 

(e) Each system (generally) ends with a verse 
shorter by one syllable, generally termed a 
Versus Parcemiacus, from so frequently 
containing a irapot^la^ proverb or moral 
sentiment. To this verse is frequently 
prefixed a monometer, as 

irpiv av if; j aypioov || Ssct/jlcov J yaXdcrr) jj 

woivas | ts Ttveiv |[ {Monometer?) 
TriaS* al\iclas || s9s\rj\ary m (Versus Par 'cemiacus.) 

Obs. 1. A monometer may occur anywhere 
in the system. 

Obs. 2. The final syllable of the Versus 
Parcemiacus is not subject to the above 
rule relating to Synapheia. 

Obs. 3. In the Anapsestic system, an Ana- 
paest can never follow a Dactyl. 



164 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

XIII. Trochaic Metres. 

The Trochaic metre of most frequent occurrence is 
the Tetrameter Catalectic. As has already been 
said, it may conveniently be considered as consisting 
of a Cretic, or its equivalent, prefixed to a Trimeter 
Iambic. 

Odaabv rj fi | lyjpr\v ^po^aivEiv^ UofjLrjy St aareos' 
oo9 vlv cke\tev(tc0 /jle aooacu* to <ye Sltccuov coS* £%££* 
iSlov rj I kolvov 7roXirai9 ETTL^spoov sy/cXrjfid ti. 

Obs. 1. But this Trochaic Senarius admits no 
Anapsest even in the first place, and it must have 
the Penthemimeral Caesura. Indeed the break there 
is as decisive as if the verse were divided into two 
lines ; so that not only a compound word cannot be 
broken, but not even an article or a preposition is 
suffered to terminate the fourth foot. Thus the 
following verse is incorrect : 

Tavrd pot 8t7rXr) /jLspijJLV a \ fypacTTOS egtlv sv <j>ps<Ti : 

For which we read, 

Tavrd fioi pbiptfiv a^paaros \ egtlv ev <bpzalv SiTrXrj* 

Obs. 2. The rule respecting the pause is also 
scrupulously observed: for instance in Eur. Hel. 
1648. Ol7T£p rj hi/cr) ksXsvsl \£ ■ dXX? dcj^LaraaB* | 
ifCTToScov. (Porson reads dcpiaraa.) 

* The following line of Sophocles Hermann considers to be 
excused by a change of person, the csesura being affected by the 
pause in the recitation (Phil. 1402.): 

N. €t doKu, (Tre(x^^y» *. & ywcuov elprjKws tiros. 



TROCHAIC METRES. 



165 



Obs. 3. Anapaests are admissible only in the even 
places. 

The following is a scale of this metre : * 



3. 


2. 


3. 


4. 


5. 


6. 


7. 


—\s 


— v> 


— V> 


— **/ 


_w 


*-v^ 


— v-» 




v/\^— 




v^«-/— 




yy^ — 





8. 



As the Tragic Trimeter Iambic admits Anapaests 
in proper names, so the Tragic Tetrameter Trochaic 
is supposed to admit Dactyls in similar circum- 
stances, and for the same reason, in every foot but 
the fourth and last. Only two instances, however, 
are to be found, viz. Eur. Iph. 882. and 1352. : 

si? dp* [ Icf)cy8\vsLav ( EXsvr]9 vogtos av irs7rpcDfjLsvo9 : 

7TaVTS9 "'EiXXfJVSS' (T TpCLTOS Bs | MujO/uSojvO)^ OVTOC 

irapr\v. 

In the construction of Trochaics, if the first clipodia 
is contained in whole words, the second foot must be 
a Trochee : thus 

<j>avspo9 ovtco2 ] s^sXeyxOsl? $siko9 cos strjs (f)vaiv 

is an objectionable verse: so also in Eur. Iph. A. 
1340. For 



* " The later tragedy was negligent about rhythm in general 
and even admitted disyllabic words into a tribrach. Eur. Orest. 
736.: 

Xpovios* aAA' ofxcas rdx^ra \ Kcuchs i(p\ccpd9rj (pi\ois. 

The more ancient did not indulge themselves in this licence, except 
in prepositions and certain other words closely connected, as — 
5*a KctKwv, — 6 Be rowcrZe" — Hermann on Metres, p. 27. 

M 3 



166 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

Tiva Ss (psvysLS | tskvov ; ^A^cXKsa tov8' ISslv al<j)(i- 
vofiai, 

we must read, 

ti 8s, tskvov, favysis; *A%CKksa, k. t.X. 

There are other varieties of Trochaic verse : 

1. Monom. Acat. or Basis Trochaica: 

aCTTs\vdKT09. 

„ Hypercat. or Penthem : 

re itot av\aaTs\\vsl$. Hec. 183. 

2. Dim. Brachycat. or Ithy phallic : 

&a,KTv\\oi$ s\\Xicrcrs. Orest. 1431. 
„ Catal. or Hephthem. : 






roov d\irop6rj\Twv ttg\\19. 

Eur. Hec. 894. 

(So in Horace : Non e|bur, nej,que aurejum.) 
Dim. Hypercat. : 

as s\yrjfi 6 \\ Tofcjras TIa\\pl9. Orest. 1408. 

3. Trim. Brachycat. : 

eo ts\kvov, ts\kvov ra\\alvd$ || fidrpb?. 

Hec. 688* 

„ Catal. : 

KaT6a\vsly kcl\kcs <t a\iroKTsl\vsl 7rb\o~l$. 

Orest. 1467. 



DACTYLIC METRES. 167 

Trim. Acatalect. : 

sl0 y d\sX\al\\d rdl'xpppco \\ cttos 7rs\\sia9. 

Soph. (Ed. C. 1081. 

kcCI /ca\crZyvrj\\Tdv 7rv\/cpoaTl\\fCTGov ofrdhbv. 

1092. 
Trim. Hypercat. : 

rj\6ov\fis $b\\fjL0vs, lv\ av0* s\\fcdcrTa aol Xs||yco. 

Eur. Or. 1397. 

Obs. Bentley (on Cic. Tusc. iii. 12.) affirms that 
this metre is unknown to tragedy and comedy 
Gaisford thinks that the above are legitimate in- 
stances. 

XIV. Dactylic Metre. 

In Dactylic verse one foot constitutes a metre. 

1. Monom. Hypercat. : 

OlSi7rb\\Bd. 

2. Dim. Cat. on two syllables (called Adonic) : 

rolcrS* bjjbb || (f)oop6v. .-ZEsch. Ag. 166. 

This verse concludes the Sapphic Stanza, as 
Kisit Apollo. 
Dim. Acat. : 

ri9 S' sirl\rvixBlbs : ov Bala\\rjv6pd : 
rdvBs <yv\\vcuKGQV* 

3. Trim. Catal. on one syllable : 

~ApTEfiL\\$ds ts 6l\\d9. Hec. 462. 
rdv Zevs \\ dfic^LTTvWpp. 471. 

M 4 



168 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

As Hor. Od. iv. 7. : 

arbori|busque co|mse. 

Trim. Catal. on two syllables : 

ttoWu yap \\ oqgt d/cd\\/Jbdvrb9 

rj Nbrov || rj Hups ||<z rls 

svpsl || Kv/jLara || ttovtoo. Soph. Trach. 110. 

„ Acat. 

Zev%b/jLcu || dp pari || ttooXovs. Hec. 467. 

4. Tetram. Catal. arc 0/ze syllable. 

co 7rb\v\\fc\avTS <pc\\\olal 0a\\v6ov. 

JEsch. Pers. 680. 

„ Acat. with a Cretic at the end : 

V7rv b8v\\vds a8a\\r}9 9 virvk || 8' aXyscov. 

Soph. Phil. 826. 

This is admissible only in single verses. In a 
system of this kind the final syllable is not common: * 

ad 8' epifr || ov/c epl? || M ^>o||^&> cpbvbs 
Ol&L7rb\\8d Sbfjbbv \\ ooXhas || tcpdvOsl? 
alfidrl || SsFi/ftJ || alfjudrl \\ Xvypoo* 

Eur. Phoen. 1510. 

Sometimes a verse of a different kind is subjoined 
to a Dactylic system : 

afyOlrbv || aKdjid || raj> a7ro||Tpi/ih-a£, 
ZWoy&£||i/0)j> apo || rpwv eTOS || fZs ero$, 
Z7T7ra|ft) ryeJi/fZ 7rb\Xsv6uv. Soph. An tig. 338. 

* See above, Synapheia in Anapaestic Verse. 



DACTYLIC METRES. 169 

The following is an instance of the Dactylic 
Tetrameter in Horace : 

Certus e|nim pro[misit Apollo. 

Tetram. Hypercat. : 

ovS* V7T0 |] irdp6evl\d$ rbv v\iro (3Ks(^d\pols. 

Eur. Phoen. 1501. 

5. Pentam. Acat. : 

vacrdl &* || al Ka,Ta\7rp6ov dXt\ov 7rspl\\/c\vaToi. 

iEsch. Pers. 883. 

6. Hexam. Acat : 

f 7rpo9 as <ys\\ vsiaSbs, || go cj>c\o$, do 8oKi\\/JL6oTciTb9 \\ 

avTo/jLai, || d/jb(j)t'7Ti\\TVOvcra to \\ abv ybvv \\ Kcii 
%5/oa || Ssckatdv. Eur. Suppl. 277. 288. 

See Soph, El. 134. 150. 

firjSs to || irdp9svl\\dp iTTSpbv || ovpsl\\ov Tspds || 
"s\0slv. Eur. Phoen. 819. 

Obs. 1. The Dactylic Hexameter is the metre of 
Homer and the other epic poets : and being scarcely 
used in the dramatic writers, needs not explanation 
here. 

Obs. 2. The Greek Elegiac Pentameter is similar 
to the Latin, but admits a trisyllable word at the 
end : as 

dvfiov ottottvsIovt | oXkc/jLov sv Koviy. 



170 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

It is only once used in tragedy, viz. in Eur. 
Andr. 103. sqq. 

7. Logacedic* — This appellation is given to verses 
which commence with Dactyls and end in Trochees, 
and is given to them, as Hermann remarks, because 
they appear to hold a middle station betw T een song 
and common speech. 

/jltjts ird\rpcobv l\\/colr ss \ ol/cbv. Hec. 938. 

SKTOTTl I] 0$ (Tv\6£t9 O \ TTUVTCOV. Soph. GEd. C. 

119. See iEsch. Prom. 138. 157. 173. 193. 
rjcrOa cf)v\\Ta\iJLl\d$ Bva\aldov. 151. 
do 7rb\fc, | co <ysvs\\d rd\Xalvd' | vvv as 
fxolpd Kad\dfispi\\d (p6c\vsl 9 (f)6l\vsL 

Electr. 1413, 1414. 

s\6 S7TC | KOVpOV S WfAols <j)l\\olal | TTaVTCOS. 

Eur. Or. 1293. 

Obs. 1. Spondees, instead of Dactyls, are not 
supposed to be admissible : otherwise we might 
refer to this description of verse, Hec. 900., — 

Krjkio* | olKTpbrd\rdv Ksfyptoaal : 

and also 455. 463. 466. 475. 629. 

The following verse, in which a Dactyl stands 
combined with three Trochees, frequently occurs in 
the tragedians : 

Bfj^lOvfibv spco709 av6b$. .ZEsch. Ag. 720. 

XV. Ionic a Majore. (-- w) 

An Ionic verse a majore admits a Trochaic Syzygy 



IONIC A MAJORE. 171 

promiscuously with its proper foot ; the second 
Paeon in the first place; also a Molossus in the 
second place of a Trimeter whole or catalectic. 
Resolutions of the long syllable are allowed in all 
possible varieties. 

Monom. Hypercat. or Penthem. : 

TTTooacrovGi /jLvfyoov* Hec. 1048. 

Dim. Brachycat. : 

kolI cG0(f)p6va || 7ra)kols. Phoen. 182, 

„ Catal. : 

rj TidXkdhbs || sv irokfu. Hec. 465. 

}j xxcat. • 

Sdcfrvd 0' cs\\povs dvsa^s. 458. 

„ Hypercat. : 

vvv S' ovtos d\\vslral arvys \\p(p. 

Soph. Aj. 1232. 
Trim. Brachycat. : 

olKTpdv /3lb\\Tdv s%ovadv || olicois. Hec. 456. 
X at p\ zvTvylla S' clvtos blpUXus. Or. 348. 

Trim. Acat. : 

rdv ovO vttvos || alpsl 7r6^' 6 || Trdvrb^rjpoos. 

Soph. Ant. 614. 

But this may be Choriambic, according to Hermann. 
If the three remaining Pseons, or the second 






172 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

Pcoon in any place but the first, or if an Iambic 
Syzygy or an Epitrite be found in the same verse 
with an Ionic foot, the verse is then termed JEpionic. 

XVI. Ionic a Minore. (w~ ) 

An Ionic verse a minore admits an Iambic Syzygy 
promiscuously ; and begins sometimes with the third 
Paeon; sometimes with a Molossus, which is ad- 
mitted in the odd places. Resolutions of the long 
syllable are also allowed. 

Monom. Hypercat. or Penthem. : 

fjusTCsds fjid\\ rpb$. Hec. 185. 

Dim. Catal. or Hephthem. : 

sXdrds dicp\oKb[Jbols. Phoen. 1531. 

, . xLcat* « 

TrdpaKklvova || sirsKpavsv. .ZEsch. Ag. 721. 
„ Hypercat. : 

$ls$l(j)p£v\\crs MvprlXov \\ cpovbv. Eur. Or. 984. 
Trim. Acat. : 



fjubvaS alco \\ va hla%ov\<ra top asl. 

Phcen. 1537. 

The choruses in the Bacchae of Euripides ar< 
principally in this metre. 

This metre is once used by Horace, in Od. iii. 12., 

Miserarum est, &c. 

An Epionic verse a minore is constituted by inter 



• 



CHORIAMBIC METRES. 173 

mixing with the Ionic foot a Trochaic Syzygy, an 
Epitrite, the second or fourth Pseon, or the third 
Paeon in any place but the first. 

XVII. Choriambic Metre. 

A Choriambic verse sometimes begins with an 
Iambic Syzygy; as, 

7T£<f)plfca rdv || a)\ealol\Kov. ^3Esch. S. c. Th. 717. 

and generally ends with one, either complete or 
Catalectic. It also sometimes ends with a Trochaic 
Syzygy : 

flfjVES ajTJWpCOS XPOVO) SlJ || VCLGTa.9. 

Soph. Ant. 608. 
a vrbSal || rcrol Oavooat 
KoixQovla || kovIs wlfj. JEsch. S. c.Th. 733, 734.* 

Monom. : 

do fiol sjvo. Eur. Hec. 1039. 

„ Hypercat. or Penthem. : 

tcivBs 'yvvaZ\\fcooy. 1053. 

Dim. Brachycat. : 

aXtb$ av\\yd%sl. 634. 

„ Catal. or Hephthem. : 

TropOfiov al%\\co ToKds. 1088. 

* The verses corresponding to these in the antistrophe are— • 
TrapfiaaXav \\ ookvttoZvov 
aiwva 5' is || rplrou fieyef. 



t 



174 IIAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

Dim. Acat. : 

dfi(f)l K:\a80i9 || s%6/jLsvd. Phoen. 1532. 

1. " The Catalectic Dimeter, which consists o 
one Logaoedic order, occurs sometimes among the 
dramatic poets, repeated in systems, resolutions 
being rarely admitted, as in Euripides, Bacch. 105. : 

3) ^s/xsXas rpcxfcol ®fj- 
fiai, <TT£(f)avov<j6s /cccraa>. 
ftp vers, fipvsTS '^Xorjpa 
afjLikcuct, KcCXXacapTTcp. 

"(So in Horace : Lydia die | per omnes |.) 
" Systems of Acatalectic Dimeters are concluded 
with this verse. JSsch. S. c. Th. 924. 

ee Sal6cf)pcov, ov (frtkoya- 
6r)$> stv/jlcos 8aKpv%scov 
itc fypsvos, a fckaio/jLsvas 

fJLOV [JbLVvOsi 

TOLvSs SVOLV CLVCLKTOIV" 

See Hermann on Metres : p. 91. 
Dim. Hypercat. : 

tclv 6 jjisyds || fivOos as%\zl. Soph. Aj. 226. 
2. Trim. Brachycat. : 

iroXibv a<fiav£9 \\ alOspo? £lh\\d)\bv. 

Eur. Ph. 1559. 
5, -Zxcat. • 

vvv Tsksaai |j Tas irspi6v\\/xovs tcarapas. 
JSsch. S. c. Th. 721. 



CHOKIAMBIC METRES. 175 

" The latter form only of tragedy appears to have 
used resolved feet, as Eur. Iph. A. 1036. : 

"tw ap i/fjbsval\o9 Sia Xcotov Ai/3vos' 
/jLsra ts cj)cX6^6\pov KiOdpas" — Hermann. 

3. Tetram. Catal. : 

a vkbras || fjbol $Tkbv d%\\0o9, to Ss yrj \\pas aid. 

Here. F. 639. 

" Chorlamblc verses are found beginning with an 
Anacrusis, i. e. a time or times extra metruin, and 
forming a kind of introduction or prelude to the 
syllables which the Ictus afterwards begins. iEsch. 
S. c. Th. 313.: 

vit [ avBpbs 'A^atoO 6s60sv 
7Tsp6o/jLEvav arlficos. 

Soph. Antig. 606. : 

TCLV ] OV& V7TV09 atpSL 7TO#' 6 TTaVTOjrfpCdS. 

4. A verse composed of an Amphibrachys and 
Choriambus is common. iEsch. Ag. 725.: 

mo par a Aids %kvXov. 

Obs. Horace has put a Trochaic Dipodia before 
Choriainbi, and has chosen to make the last syllable 
of it always long, whereas it is probable that among 
the Greeks it was doubtful. Od. i. 8. : 

Te deos ojro, Sybarin cur properas amando. 

The most in use are Choriambics with a base, 
which the ignorance of ancient metricians ranked 



176 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

among Antispastic verses. The shortest of these 
verses has one Choriambus. ^Esch. Suppl. 42. : 

VVV Iv | 7TOLOv6flOC9. 

Next is the Hypercatalectic, which is called 
Pherecratean. -ZEsch. S. c. Th. 282. : 

rol /JLSV ] <yap 7T0TL 7rvp\<yov9. 

Tol S' £7T | a/JL(l)lf36\0L\(TLV 

ld7r\rovai ttoX^tclls 
^sp/xdS' | otcpi6so\aav. 

(So Horace : Grato Pyrrha sub antro.) 

Then the Gly conic, which has a Logaoedic order: 
Cui flavam religas comam. 
See Soph. Ant. 100. 

Another kind has a Trochee or Spondee sub- 
joined to a Choriambus. iEsch. Eum. 1038. : 

The most in use is the Hypercatalectic Dimeter. 
Soph. Aj. 628. : 

ovS* olfc\rpas <yoov 6p\vido9 arjfiovs, 

Sophocles has used the Brachycatalectic Trimeter 
in Antig. 951. : 

aXX? a | fjuotptSla | tls Bvvacrts [ hstvd. 

Choriambic systems, too, are found beginning 
with a base. .iEsch. Suppl. 61. : 

ho%d\ a£L tls dfcov\(ov oira tcls 

Trjpsias 

fjLrjTtSos oltc\rpas dXo^ov : 



CHORIAMBIC METRES. 177 

where the Molossus in the proper name is to be 
remarked, to which a Choriambus answers in the 
Antistrophe. So also in Soph. El. 123. 139., where 
the last syllable of the Choriambus is resolved : 

rdfcscs J e5S' a/copSTOv j olfjicoydv. 

av- 
ardasi9 ovrs yoocs, ovrs \trah. 

In the same play Molossi are made to answer to 
each other (472. 488.): 

si fir) | *y<o 7rapd(f)pmv \ /judvTLS s<fivv | teal yvd>jJLa$. 
rfeu j fcal irokvirovs | teal nrdkir^sip | d Sslvols. 

This is done (ib. v. 129. 145.) in verses also without 
a base : 

5) ysvsdXa ysvvalcov. 

VrjTTlOS OS T(i)V ollCTp5)$. 

Sophocles has used the Trimeter Hypercatalectic 
(Phil. 681.): 

aXKov I S' ovTiv sycoy | olSa kKvcov^ | ov$ saihov | 
[jLoipq. 

Horace uses many Choriambics with a base, always 
putting a Spondee in the latter, and making a 
Caesura at the end of each Choriambus except the 
last : 

Maece|nas, atavis | edite rejgibus. 

Nullam, Vare, sacra vite prius severis arborem. 

Once only, and that in a compound word, he has 
neglected the Caesura (i. 18. 16.): 

N 



178 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

Arcanique fides prodiga, perlucidior vitro. 
Alca3us was careless of such matters : 

/jl7]Bsv aWo cf>vTSvarj9 irporspov SevSpeov afjuirsXci).* 

And Catullus has followed him, Carm xxx."— -Her" 
mann on Metres, p. 93. f 

The following is termed the Choriambus Poly- 
schematistus : 

OlhliroZd | fipbrdov oi)8e\va fjLa,Kapi\%(o. 

Soph. CEd. T. 1195. 

A Glyconeus Poly schematistus contains a Chori- 
ambus in the second foot : 

"AXs^avhpos | slXarivdv. Hec. 630. 

TC TOVS CLV(o\9sV (ppOVLfJLQ)- 
TCLT0V9 0l(o\v0V9 EabpGO- 

fisvoi rpbcfrds \ KrjSb/jLsvovs 

d(j> gov rs j3\da\TQ)(rlv, d^> gov t . as.t.X. 

Soph. El. 1058. 
Kal fibTijpd? | lirnrbvbfjbovs. Aj. 232. 
ovSsv sXksl\7rsl y^vsds. Ant. 585. 
ay Xi7rapb%oo\vov Ovydrsp. Phoen. 178. 
okWpiov /3lb\rdv nrpbady&s. Med. 989. 

XVIII. Antispastic Metre. 

An Antispast is composed of an Iambus and a 
Trochee (w- | -J). To lessen the labour of composi- 

* So also Theocritus, who employs this metre in the twenty- 
eighth Idyllium. 

f See Bentley on Hor. Od. iv. 8. 17. 



- 



CHORIAMBIC METKES. 179 

tion, in the first part of the foot any variety of the 
Iambus, in the second any variety of the Trochee, is 
admitted. Hence we get the following kinds of 
Antispast : 

1. 2. 



Instead of an Antispast, an Iambic or Trochaic 
Syzygy is occasionally used. 

The second foot of the Iambic Syzygy also admits 
a Dactyl : 

Antisp. Monom. : 

9 t ' r/rr 

co iroTVL tipa' 

S) QbC "AnroKkov. JEsch. S. c. Th. 141. 147. 

„ Dim. Brachycat. : 

tfjbol xpfjv %v{jL\\<j)6pdv. Hec. 627. 

„ Dim. Acat. : 

vbfjbbv avofjiov, ol\a rls %ov0a* 
tc S' S7rl(j)b^a Bva\(j)aToj xXdyya. 

JEsch. Ag. 1111. 1121. 

„ Dim. Hypercat. : 

sfiol XPV V 'JTrj^ovdv <yevs\(j6al. 

Eur. Hec. 628. 
Takalv ovks\tI <t' efifiaTBv^Gw. i^Ol. 

N 2 



180 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

Antisp. Trim. Brachycat. : 

Takaivai ra\\\alval /copal \\ Qpvydtiv. 1046. 

„ Trim. Catal. or H end ecasy liable : 

aOvpaol S' oZ || a vlv 8pdfJLov\\Ts ftdjcjfai. 

Eur. Or. 1502. 

" Euripides appears to have used a Trimeter in the 
Here. Fur. 919., followed by a verse composed of 
two Dochmii : 

Xsye, Ttvd rpbirov | scrvrb OsbOsv sirl fieXdOpd Kt- 
-/cc rdSs, rXrj/jbbvds \ ts 7ral8oov Ti)%as." 
— Hermann. 

XIX. Dochmiac Verses. 

A Dochmius consists of an Antispast and a long 
syllable (^ — ^-) ; therefore a simple Dochmiac is the 
same as an Antispastic Monom. Hypercat. : 

6 scop rj Osdv* 

A pure Dimeter Dochmiac is not of frequent 
occurrence : the fourth of the following lines is one : 

aklfisvbv tIs oos \\ 69 dvrXdv irscrodv 
Xsjtflbs sKTTsafj || cpiXds Kaphlds 
t fjbepads ftldv \\ to yap virsyyvov 
Sited Kcil 6soi\\o~lv ov %vfjL7rtTVsl. 

Hec. 1010—1013. 

* According to Hermann there are forty-eight varieties. 



«NM 



DOCHMIACS. 181 

Other varieties of the Dimeter Dochmiac may be 
found in the chorus in JEsch. S. c. Th. 79. ed. 
Blomf. — 

psl ttoXvs coSs \sgo9 |] irpoSpbpLbs hnroras. 
d/jbd^srou Sl/cdv j| vSdrbs bpbrvTrov. 
aXsvcrdrs j3ba \\ S' virsp rsl^scov. 
res ape pvasrai, |) res dp* sirapicsarsl ; 
ttsttXcov tcai crrscjysoop [) ttot el purj vvv, dp, — cj)L 

(TV T ~Ap7]2, (j)SV, (f)£V, || ILdSpLOV 'sTTCDVVpLOV. 

sv rs fid^als (Jbdfcalp || dvdaad irpb ttoXzws. 
coo rsXslol || TsXslal rs yds ' — 

with an Iambic Syzygy. 

Also in Eurip. Hec. 681. 684. 688. 689. 690. 
693. 702. 703. 707. 708. 709. 

The Dimeters do not always consist of separate 
Dochmii. ^Esch. Prom. 590., S. c. Th. 479. : 

V7rb Ss K7]p67r\aa\\ro9 6to/3sl S6va%. 
0)9 S' virspav^a 6d\\^ovacv sttl tttoXu. 

The following verses are also referred to the 
dochmiac system by Hermann de Metr. 1. n. c. xxi. 
in which the final long syllable is resolved into two 
short (Eur. Or. 149.) : 

KarajSy f<drdys 9 irpbalff* || drpspbds, drpsfids Wl* 
Xbybv dirbSbsy scj> b re || %psbs spuoXsrs irors, 
yjpbvld yap irscroov || 68' avvd^srau 

Also these, in the second of which a short syllable 
stands in place of the long, by the force of the pause 
on the vocative (Here. Fur. 870.): 

N 3 



182 IIANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

Orbrbroly aT£vd^\\bv aTTOKslpsral 
Zoz> av6bs> iroklsj || 6 Aids Efcybvos. 

A Dochmiac is sometimes connected with a Cretie, 
either pure or resolved : 

iTTTairvXbv I £ Sbs iirippvov. 

JEsch. S. c. Th. 151. 
rdaSi 7rvp\yb(fiv\afC£s irbXlv. 154. 
Ik£to T£piMovlbv || £ttI irdybv. Prom. 1.17. 

XX. Phonic Metre. 

A Paeonic verse admits any foot of the same time 
as a Paeon, viz., a Cretic, a Bacchius, or a Tribrach 
and Pyrrhic jointly ; a Palimbacchius or third Paeon 
is not often found. The construction of the verse is 
most perfect when each metre ends with a word. 

Dim. Brachycat. : 

bfibydjibs |j Kvpfu Phoen. 137. 
„ Catal. : 

%akfcb8sTa \\ T £/Ji{3b\a» 113. 

,, x\.cat. • 

Biol'xofiW 9 || oiybfiWa. Orest. 179. 
Bpb/jbdSis <d || irrspbcftbpoL 311. 

„ Hypercat. : 

mapc %1/jlovvt\\lo12 b%£\\Tol9. Orest. 779» 
0£O)V v£/jL£\\ai$ £ls E\S||raj/. 1356. 



PCEONIC METRE. 183 

Trim. Brachycat. : 

Phoen. 146. 

„ Catal. : 

fiakolfii XP°\ V( P <f>vyaha \ flsXsbv. 169. 

„ Acat. : 

to Bs KaXws j fcrdfisvbv, co [ fjisya valcov 
(7TO}ubv 3 Bv\Bbs dvsBrjv j Bbfibv avBpbs. 

XXL Versus Prosodiacus. 

This appellation is given to a verse in which 
Choriambics are mixed with Ionics or Paeons. 

Dim. Acat. : 

a Bs Xlvbv j rfKaKara. Eur. Or. 1429. 
vrjfjbdrd ff l\srb 7rsB<p. 1431. 

„ Hypercat. : 

libXirav 8' cutto, \ kcCL ybpbiroVfiv. Hec. 905. 
fxaarov V7rsp\rsXkdpT sai\Bcdv. Or. 832. 

Trim. Catal. : 

\dlvs0l9 | ^Ajjbfyibvbs | opydvoi?. 114. 

„ Hypercat. : 

jMsydXd Bs \ rls Bvvd/us j Bf d\darb\pcdv. 

Or. 1562. 



sr 4 



184 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA, 

XXII. Cretic Verses. 

Dimeter Cretics are very much used both by 
tragedians and comedians, and commonly conjoined 
in systems, so that the last syllable of the verses is 
neither doubtful, nor admits an Hiatus, and may be 
resolved. In these systems a Monometer too is 
assumed. .iEsch. Suppl. 425. : 

<t>pOVTl(TOV, 

koX yevov \ iravhtKcos 

svasftrjs | irp6%evo$ m 

rav (frvydSa \ /jltj 7rpoSo3s, 

TCLV SKCL0SV \ EfcfioXafc 

hvaOiois | op/JLEvav. 
See also Eur. Orest. 1415. 

XXIII. Versus Asynarteti. 

Verses in which dissimilar species are united are 
so called. 

Hec. 1080. : 

Sslva, hfiva || irsirdvOaiAsV) 

Troch. Syz. + Iam. Syz. 
Hec. 457. : 

sv0c 7rpft5r6 1| yovos re (j)ol\vl^ 9 

Troch. Syz. + lam. Penthem. 

A verse of this kind in which a Trochaic is 
followed by an Iambic Syzygy, or vice versa, is 
termed Periodicus. 



ASYNAKTE LINES. 185 

Eur. Or. 1404.: 

alXlvbv, aCKLvbv || dpydv Odvdrov, 

Dact. Dim. + Anap. Monom. 
Or. 824. : 

rj fjLarpd/crbvbv \\ al/Jba %zlpl Beadal, 

Dact. Dim. + Troch. Ithyphallic. 
Hec. 915. : 

sirli'ajjbvlbv d)9 \\ Trscroip! ss svvdv, 

Anap. Monom. + Iamb. Penth. 
Or. 960. : 

(TTpdrrjXdTwv \\ "E\XdSb9 iror ovrolv 3 

Iamb. Monom. -f Troch. Ithyph. 
Phcen. 1033.: 

v 8a9, e(3as, || do TTTspovaac yd? \b%£v/jLa, 

Iamb. Monom. + Troch. Dim. 
V Hec. 1083. : 

al0sp y dfJL7rTd\\fjLsvbs ovpdvlbv, 

Troch. Monom. + Anap. Monom. 
Phoen. 1525. : 

rj tgov irdpoWsv \\svysvsTav sTspo9 9 

Iamb. Penth. + Dact. Penth., called also lambe- 
legus. 

Obs. 1. The following are instances of Asynartete 
verses from Horace. Od. i. 4. : 



186 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

Solvitur acris hyems grata vice || veris et Favoni, 

of which the first part is a Dactylic Tetrameter, the 
last a Trochaic Dimeter Brachycatalectic. 
Epode xi. : 

Scribere versiculos || amore perculsum gravi, 

Dact. Trim. Cat. + Iamb. Dim. 

Obs. 2. In these verses the final syllable of the 
Dactylic part is common, and elision is sometimes 
neglected : 

v. 6. Inachia furere || silvis, &c. 
10. Arguit, et latere || petitus, &c. 
14. Fervidiore mero || arcana, &c. 
24. Vincere mollitia || amor, &c. 

Epod. 13. : 

Occasionem de die : dumque virent genua, 

lam. Dim. + Dact. Trim. Cat., the reverse of the 
former metre. The same licence also occurs in this : 

v, 10. Levare diris pectora || sollicitudinibus. 

Archilochus is said to have been the inventor of 
Asynartete verses. 






I 



COMIC METRES. 187 



COMIC METRES. 



The Comic Senarius admits Anapaests into every- 
place but the sixth, and a Dactyl into the fifth ; but 
here likewise a Tribrach or Dactyl immediately 
before an Anapaest is inadmissible. Caesuras are 
neglected, and a Spondee is admitted into the fifth 
place without scruple. 

Respecting the Comic Tetrameter Catalectic, 
Porson gives the following rules : that the fourth 
foot must be an Iambus or Tribrach l ; that the 
sixth foot admits an Anapaest 2 ; but that the foot 
preceding the Catalectic syllable must be an Iambus, 
unless in the case of a proper name, when an Ana- 
paest is allowed 3 , — in this case the same licence is 
allowed in the fourth foot. 4 

7rp(OTi(TTa fjisv yap sva | ys Tiva 1 1 Kadeiaav syKaXvtyas. 
ov% rjrrov rj vvv ol \a\ovvrs9 9 rj\\L0co$ 2 | yap r}a6a. 
iyivsTO lAsXaviTTiras iroi&v, Qaihpas rs, Ur)\vs\6- 

irrjv 3 ] $s. 
tcov vvv yvvaifccbv Tir^vakoir^v^^ \ Qalhpas S' aira^a* 

iraaas. 

Others are of opinion that in this kind of verse 
the comic poets admit Anapaests more willingly and 
frequently into the first, third, and fifth places, than 
into the second, fourth, and sixth ; but that Porson 
is mistaken in restricting altogether to the case of 
proper names the use of Anapaests in the fourth 
place. 



188 HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

The Cassura generally takes place at the end of 
the fourth foot. 

A writer in the Edinburgh Review states that 
u Aristophanes occasionally introduces a very elegant 
species of verse, which we are willing to mention in 
this place because it differs from the Tetrameter 
Iambic only in having a Cretic or Paeon in the 
room of the third dipodia, and because it is fre- 
quently corrupted into a Tetrameter Iambic by the 
insertion of a syllable after the first Hemistich. In 
technical language, it is an Asynartete, composed of 
a Dimeter Iambic and an Ithyphallic. It is called 
^vpiirihsLov rscraapsa/catSs/caavXka^ov by Hephae- 
stion, ch. 15., who has given the following specimen 
of it: 

f Epos cuvvfc liriroras | s^skajx^zv aarrip. 

Twenty-five of these verses occur together in the 
Wasps of Aristophanes, beginning with v. 248." 
—Edin. Rev. No. 37. p. 89. 

In Dimeter Iambics, with the exception of the 
Catalectic dipodia, the comic poets appear to admit 
Anapaests into every place, but more frequently into 
the first and third than into the second and fourth. 
The quantity of the final syllable of each Dimeter, 
as in Anapaestics, is not common. Like the tragic, 
the comic Tetrameter Trochaic may be considered 
as a common Trimeter Iambic, with a Cretic or 
Paeon prefixed ; but this Trochaic Senarius admits, 
although rarely, a Dactyl in the fifth place, and a 
Spondee subject to no restrictions. The verse is 



COMIC METRES. 189 

divided, as in tragedy, into two hemistichs, by a 
Caesura after the fourth foot. The comedians agree 
with the tragedians in excluding Dactyls except in 
proper names. In three verses Aristophanes has 
twice introduced a proper name by means of a 
Choriambus (-^-), and once by an Ionic a minore 
(^ — ) in the place of the regular Trochaic dipodia. 

Ach. 220.: 

Kcu irdkam J AatcparcSfj | to ctksXos ftapvvsrcu. 

Equ. 327..- 

UpCOTOS COV\ 6 8' | ''iTTTToBa/HOV | XslftsTaL 0S(DfJLSVOS« 

Pac. 1154.: 

Mvppivas cuttjctop if; A.la\)(lvaZov tgov \ Kapirl/JLcov. 

The laws respecting Dimeter Anapaestics are in 
general accurately observed by comic writers. 
Aristophanes in two or three instances has neglected 
the rule of making each dipodia end with a word. 
Vesp. 750. : 

"W 6 KT}pV% (j)7](TL' TtS CL'\}r7](f>t\(7T09 \ aVMJTCLCrdto. 

The Anapaestic measure peculiar to Aristophanes 
consists of two Dimeters, one catalectic to the 
other. 

'A\V r}hrj xprjv re Xsysiv rj/Jids \ crocfrov & VL/crjosTB 

TTJvSL 

In the three first places, besides an Anapaest and 
Spondee, a Dactyl is used ; so also in the fifth, but 
not in the fourth or sixth. Caesuras are accurately 



190 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

observed, subject to the same restrictions as in the 
tragic Trochaic, even so far that it must not take 
place after a preposition or an article. The Pro- 
celeusmatic is excluded. A Dactyl immediately 
before an Anapaest is unlawful ; so also when pre- 
fixed to an Ionic a minore (^ — ) in the end of a 
verse, as in these examples : 

Arist. PL 510.: 

Et yap 6 UXovtos fiXsyfrsts ttoXlv, BcavslfMScs r 
lctov iavrov. 

(Read BcavsLfMSisv r Xaov avrov») 

Av. 491.: 

<tkvt7]9, ftakavrjs, akfynafLOifiol, TopvevraamSoXvpo- 

(Read TopvsvT6\vpao-'7r(,8o7rr)yoL) 

The rule of making each dipodia end with a word 
is sometimes violated ; yet in this case, supposing 
the second foot a Dactyl, and the third a Spondee, 
the last syllable of the Dactyl cannot commence a 
word, whose quantity is either an Iambus or Bac- 
chius (^ — ). Hence in Aristoph. Eccl. 518. : 

'SiVfjLftovXoKTiv dirdaais vjuv, k. t. X. 

Brunck reads, 

SvfiftovXoccTLV iraaais vpZv, k. t. X. 

The most frequent licence is that in which a long 
vowel or a diphthong is shortened before a vowel ; 
as, Aristoph. PI. 528. : 



COMIC METRES. 191 

ovt iv Sdrnatv • tl9 jap vfyalvuv iOskrjcret, ftpvaiov 

OVTOS. 

But Aristophanes rarely lengthens a vowel before 
a mute and a liquid, except when he introduces a 
passage from Homer or other authors, or in the case 
of a proper name. 

Thus the words of Homer are cited, in Nub. 402. : 

Kal *2iOvviov aicpov 'AOrjvioyp. 

and Vesp. 652. : 

'ATap S) TTCLTSp T/fASTSpS KpOViST], 



APPENDIX. 



POKSON'S CANONS.* 

From the " Classical Journal," vol. xxxi. p. 136. 

1. The tragic writers never use pp for p<r, nor tt for crc. Thus 
they never said Xeppovrjcriav for Xepaovrja-iay, nor TrpdrTou for irpdacroo, 
nor 7\ttov for fjcrow. — Hec. 8. 

2. In systems of anapaests they neither always use, nor always 
discard, the Doric dialect. — Hec. 100. 

3. They are partial to the introduction of the particle toi in 
gnomes, or general reflections. — Hec. 228. 

4. The forms Svva, dduva, and the 2nd pers. sing. pres. indie, from 
verbs in a/j.ai are more Attic than dvprj, &c. — Hec. 253. 

5. Dawes has too hastily asserted that no syllable can he made 
short by a scenic poet, in which the consonants {S\, y\, y^ yv, 5,u, 
8v, concur. This rule, though generally true, is sometimes violated 
by iEschylus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes, but never by Euripides. 
— Hec. 298. 

6. The Homeric 7/5e is sometimes found in the tragic writers, 
contrary to the assertion of Valcknaer, Phcen. 1683. See Hec. 323. 

* The careful student will regard these Canons, and those which 
follow merely as heads for observation. It is a useful plan, espe- 
cially with reference to self-improvement in composition, to mark 
down under their separate rules such examples as occur in reading 
through any of the plays of the Greek tragedians. A collection of 
these examples, made by the student for himself, during the course 
of his own reading, will be invaluable. 

O 



194 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

7. The tragic writers loved the harsh and antiquated forms of 
words — they therefore preferred the 1st to the 2nd aorist passive ; 
and the 2nd aorist pass, is consequently very seldom used: airrjWd' 
y-qv sometimes occurs. — Hec. 335. Phcen. 986. 

8. The participle &v is seldom found in conjunction with another 
participle. Homer has ^-niGTa^v6v -irep i6ura, II. T. 80. [Herod, vii. 
143. elprj/jLevov Uv.~]~^Hec. 358. 

9. "Onus and ottoos /jltj is generally joined with the 2nd person of 
the fut. tense, sometimes with the third, seldom with the first: opareop 
earl, or some expression of the same kind, may be conceived as un- 
derstood in this idiom, as, 

6no7a k'ktctos dpvbs, ottccs t^ctS' Qojjlcli. — Hec. 398. 

10. Te jueV rot. These three particles are very frequently met with 
together in Sophocles and Euripides, y4 roi n never. — Hec. 598. 

11. NeKpbs in the masculine gender is always used for the Latin 
cadaver. — Hec. 665. 

12. The accusative singular of Attic nouns in eus have the last 
syllable long. There are three exceptions to this rule in Euripides, 
Hec. 870., Electr. 599. 763. A vowel cannot be elided unless it be 
short.— Hec. 870. 

13. Uov denotes rest, -not motion: ira is used in both senses. Thus 
irov ardcrci, tto'i 5e fiavsi. Phil. 833 Hec. 1062. 

14. Instead of ^'Se^ez/, ijfeiTe, -pSeaav, the Attics used the contracted 
forms ya/nev, rjorre, ycrav. — Hec. 1094. 

15. Several verbal adjectives, as vttotttos, TrKTrhs, ^fxirrbs, aju^i- 
ttXtjktos, and some others, are found with an active as well as passive 
signification. — Hec. 1117. 

16. The ancient Attic writers never used the neuter plural with 
a verb plural, except in the case of animals. — Hec. 1141. 

17. The particle ^ giving the sense of the imperative accompa- 
nies the 1st or 2nd aorists subjunctive, and the present imperative, 
but never the present subjunctive, or 2nd aorist imperative. There 
are some few instances of ^h with the first aorist imperative. The 
Attic writers said, 

fit) ULtfjctyr) — yd] Ka/xr)s not fxrj p.efx(pr) 

fx)] (XtfKpOV nOt jU$? KdfJLr A 

Sometimes jut? fie^ai. — Hec. 1166. 







porson's CANONS. 195 

18. The first syllable of \'aos in the tragic and comic writers is 
always short: in composition it is sometimes long. — Orest. 9. 

19. The Attic writers preserved some Tonic and some Doric forms 
in their dialect: thus they always said, 3 A9dva, dapbs, fjcari, Kvvcuyos, 
irofiaybs, Koxaybs, £eva,ybs, 07ra5bs, and not J Adr]ur) f dripos, &c. Also 
IJ.ovvos y ^li/os, sometimes, instead of jjlovos, £eVos. But though they 
had the form Kvvayhs and 'AOdva, they used Kvprjyeryjs and 'AQ-qvaia. 
— Orest 26. 

20. The tragic writers, though they sometimes make long by 
position syllables short by nature, yet prefer to keep them short, so 
that three examples will be found where they are short, for one where 
they are long. This kind of licence is more frequent in uncom- 
pounded words, as reia/ov, narphs, than in others. A syllable is much 
more rarely lengthened in a compound word, if it falls on the 
junction itself, as in iroXvxpvaos, Andr. 2. They were equally sparing 
in lengthening the augments, as in eVe'/cAwo-ey, KeKArjaOai. The licence 
is still more uncommon in the case of a preposition and a verb, as 
a7roT/307roi, Phosn. 595. But where a word ends with a short syllable, 
followed by a word beginning with two consonants, such that the 
short syllable may continue short, there is no instance of undoubted 
authority where it does not remain so. Therefore, where such lines 
occur as 

irapBevov, ijj.fj re ixrjTpl irapedccKe rp4<p€LV, 

the v €(p€AKv(TTLKbv must be inserted. — Orest. 64. 

21. In the formula of adjuration, viz. npos with a genitive case 
the article with the noun is seldom omitted by the comic, and never 
expressed by the tragic writers. — Orest. 92. 

22. Adjectives, such as fxavias, iddos, are of three genders, though 
they are less frequently used in the neuter : fiavidaiv Avaa-q/iacrL, dpo- 
lidvi pAecpdpois. — Orest. 264. 

23. Te/coDcra is never used by Euripides absolutely for fir]rr}p. — 
Orest. 285. 

24. The active verb is often found instead of the middle, the per- 
sonal pronoun being understood : as, 

kcu vvv avaKaXvirr, £> Ka<riyv7)T0V ndpa, 

and now uncover, sc. yourself. — Orest. 288. 

25. The tragic writers used the form in -atpw, not in -a'u/ca. Thus 

O 2 



196 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

they said lxfkdpu % not exfycuVa>. They also said <VxcuVa>, not \<rxvo.iv(a* 
— Orest 292. 

26. Oeoy, in the nominative and accusative singular, is not unfre- 
quently a monosyllable, and very often in the other cases : &(tt€os is 
also sometimes found as a dissyllable. — Orest. 393. 

27. The Attic writers made the penult of comparatives in icovlong: 
the other dialects had it short. — Orest. 499. 

28. The iota of the dative singular is but rarely elided. — Orest 
584. 

29. When the discourse is hastily turned from one person to 
another, the noun is placed first, then the pronoun, and then the 
particle, as, 

Mej/eAae, crol dh rdBe Xeyw. — Orest. 614. 

30. The different governments and usages of 8e? and XPV : — 
Homer only once used Se?, and then an infinitive mood is sub- 
joined. II. I. 337. He very frequently uses XP^I w ^ tn an infin., and 
with an accusative of the person and genitive of the thing : as also 
Xpecb with the accusative and genitive. Euripides has once imitated 
this form : — 

aAAa rls XP*' ia °"' tf 10 " 5 — Hec. 962„ : fe 

The Greeks in common said 5e? croi rouSe. iEschylus seems first 
to have altered this, by using the ace. of the person and gen. of the 
thing, avrbv yap ere 5e? Upojx-qQeas {Prom. 86.); in this he was followed 
by Euripides. 

The Attic poets never use xph with a genitive : thus, '6tov xpb, 8e? 
Aeyeiv is wrong, and should be altered to orov 5ei, XP^I Ae^etv. — 
Orest. 659. 

31. The enclitic copulative re in the ancient Greek writers never 
follows a preposition, unless that preposition commences the member 
of a sentence. Thus they said, 

%v Te 7roAeoi- apxeus 
or eV tt6\e6$ re apxeus, 
but not 7roAeos %v t' apxous. — Orest 887. 

32. Verbs denoting motion take after them an accusative of the 
instrument or member which is chiefly used : as, ttS irdtf iinfcas 



porson's canons. 197 

(Hec. 1071.) where 7^5* is put for 7rJ5a, rather than for nodi See 
above, 28. and Or est 1427. 

33. The tragic writers seldom prefix the article to proper 
names, except for emphasis, or at the beginning of a sentence. — 
Phoen. 145. 

34. The tragic writers do not admit of an hiatus after ri. Thus 
they did not say Kayw ri ov dpccu, nor did they ask a question simply 
by oTTo?os t wherever the question is asked, biroios must by written 6 
iroTos, not oiroTos. — Phoen. 892. 

35. Avrbs is frequently used absolutely for fxSuos : and yet avrbs 
fiows is not a tautologous expression. — Phoeh, 1245. 

36. The article forms a crasis with a word beginning with alpha 
only when the alpha is short. Thus, no tragic writer would say T&0Aa 
for tcl ad\a, because the penult of ad\ov is long, the word being con- 
tracted from feQXov.— Phoen. 1277. 

37. The noun avia or avir] generally has its second syllable long, 
but sometimes short, as in four instances adduced by Ruhnken, 
Epist. Crit. ii. p. 276. The verb aviaoo or avi&fy, in the epic poets, 
generally produces the second syllable. Aristophanes has the second 
syllable of c^ew thrice short, and once long. The second syllable of 
dviapbs is always short in Euripides and Aristophanes, and long in 
Sophocles: Antig. 316. But the third syllable is always long. — 
Phoen. 1334. 

38. Kal nccs, and irus Kal, have very different meanings: Kal iroos 
is used in asking a question which implies an objection or contra- 
diction to the preceding remark, as, Kal ir&s yivon av rSvBe dvo-iro- 
TfjLcvTepa ; where Creon's question is an implied affirmation that the 
messenger's previous remark was not true. But irws Kal asks some 
additional information : as, 

tt£s Kal ireirpaKrai 5j7ttux&>v iraiScav <p6vos\ 

In this latter sense Kal follows the interrogatives ris, ireds, iro?, irov, 
7ro7os. Sometimes between the interrogative and Kal, 5e is inserted, 
—Phoen. 1373. 

39. 'Us is never used for eis or irpbs, except in case of persons. 
Homer has the first instance of this Atticism. Od. P. 218. 

'Q.s aUl rbv 6/j.o?oy ay el ®ebs cos rbv d/uoTou. — Phoen. 1415. 

40. The copulative kcI never forms a crasis with ev, except in 

o 3 



198 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

words compounded with ev : it never makes a crasis with aei. — 
Ph(r?i. 1422. 

41. No iambic tetrameter occurs in the tragic writers which 
divides a spondee in the fifth foot so that koI forms the second part 
of the foot. Thus, there is no line like 

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 

Kal 777s (pi\7]s uxQoiai Kpvcpdco kcu rdcpco. — Phoen. 1464. 

42. 'AAAa ixrjv, koI /xV, oboe /j.t}v, ov ^r, are frequently found in a 
sentence, with the addition of the particle ye, but never except 
where another word is interposed, thus : 

ov ix)]v av y* 7]/j.as robs t€k6vtcls rjd4(Tw. — Eur. Phcen. 1638. 

43. The quantity of the penult of av^p is nowhere long, except 
where it makes avepos in the genitive case ; and as the tragic writers 
do not use the form avepos in iambic, trochaic, or anapaestic verse, 
the penult of av7]p is in these metres always short. — Phcen. 1670. 

44. Porson prefers to adscribe, rather than subscribe the iota; 
a practice which was either universally adopted, or the iota entirely 
omitted in the more ancient MSS. The subscription of the iota 
does not seem to have been earlier than the 13th century. — Med. 6. 

45. Porson writes %vu instead of aw, both in and out of compo- 
sition, where the metre and smoothness of numbers will permit, but, 
in iambic metre, not so as to introduce a spondee where there might 
be an iambus. — Med. 11. 

46. The tragic writers in iambic, trochaic, or legitimate ana- 
paestic verse, never admit irepl before a vowel, either in the same or 
different words. In the choral odes they rarely admit a verb or 
substantive of this kind of composition — very rarely an adjective or 
adverb.— Med. 284. 

47. The distinction between oiddaKco and diddcrKOfjiai is this: — 
The master oiMaKei (teaches) the boy ; 

The father 5i5dcr/ceTcu, causes his son to be taught ; though this 
distinction is not always observed by the poets. — Med. 297. 

48. There are several nouns which in the singular are only masc. 
or feminine, but in the plural are neuter : as, oicppos, oi(ppa ; kvkXos, 
KVK\a ; Ke\ev6os, Ke\ev6a ; dea/jibs, o€0~/j.a ; u7tos, air a. — Med. 494. 

49. A vowel at the end of a verse cannot be elided unless a long 



I 



porson's canons. 199 

syllable precedes. — Med. 510. (But Virgil elides the final a in 
horrida, Georg. 2.) 

50. Medirjixi in the active voice governs an accusative; in the 
middle, a genitive case. In the line 

"AyovaLV ov ixsQeV av e/c yaias i(A€, 

the pronoun efi4 is the accusative after the participle &yovai, not 
after /U60e?o. 

When two verbs governing different cases refer equally to the 
same noun, the Greeks, in order to avoid an inharmonious repetition 
of the proper name or pronoun, give it only once, governed by one 
of the verbs, and omit it with the other. — Med. 734. 

51. The tragic writers never use the form in v<a for that in vfxi — 
(thus they do not say o/jluvw, but ofipvfii) ; the writers of the old 
comedy use it very seldom — those of the middle, oftener — those of 
the new, very often. — Med. 744. 

52. "Kyios and ayvhs are sometimes interchanged in the earlier 
editions ; but ay to s is very rarely used by the Attic — never by the 
tragic writers. — Med. 750. 

53. All compound adjectives ending in os were anciently declined 
with three terminations, as diropdrjTos, aTropd-qrr], anopd-qrou : and 
after the feminine forms had gradually become obsolete, the poets 
and Attic writers recalled them, either for the sake of ornament or 
of variety. — Med. 822. 

54. From aeipu the ancients formed the future aiipca, or aepa* — by 
contraction alpoo or apa>, the penult being long. But when they 
contracted aeipco itself into a'ipa>, then they had a new future, apco — 
the penult being short. — Med. 848. ft 

55. The future form fxe^v^croiiai (found in Homer, II. X. 390.), is 
always used by the tragic writers — the form nvqaQ-qaOfxai is never 
used : the same remark is true of KeKh^aofxai and KK^B-hao^ai. But 

/3\?]0^(7o^at and ^^X-fjaofiai are met with indiscriminately Med. 

929. 

56. The nominative forms, cijUjSAobif/ and anfiXwirbs, yopycbty and 
yopycairbs, (p\oyu\p and (pXoycoirbsy ad/m^s and ^fMTjros, &£v| and a£vyos, 
ve6(v^ and vcS&yos, empas and evKparbs, and such others, are both 
Attic— Med. 1363. 

57. In words joined by a crasis, the iota ought never to be added, 

o 4 



200 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

unless ical forms a crasis with a diphthong*, as Kara for Kal elra. — 
Pre/, iv. 

58. 'Ael, curbs, KAdw, kolo, are to be written without a diphthong 
— not aiel, aierbs, &c. — Ibid. 

59. The second persons singular of the present and future middle 
and passive, end in e* not v, which latter termination belongs to the 
subjunctive. Thus, tvtttojulcu, tvitth, tvtttstcu, and rvirrw/bLai, Tirrrrr} 
T\nrT7)Tai. — Ibid. 

60. The augment is not omitted by the Attics, except in the case 
of XPW for eXpTJ"* fouya for fywya, KaOetyfirii', KaOevdov. They 
sometimes admitted a double augment, as 7}vz<rx6i*W> cdpw, ij/neAAop 
&c. — Pre/, xix. 

61. 'EAeewbs is a word unknown to the Attics. As from deos is 
formed deivbs, from /cAeos, KAewbs, so from eAeos is formed iAeivds. — 
Pre/, viii. 

62. Derivative and compound adjectives are generally, in Attic 
Greek, of the same form in the masculine and feminine, as, 6 Kal fj 
(piXotevos, airo^Aeirros. — Pref. ix. 

63. The Attics said, oi£vs nol oi£vs, olfypbs not o:Qvp6s : as also, 
ols, olarbs, OIkAtjs, OlAevs. — Pref. x. 

64. Some Ionisms are used by the tragic writers, though spar- 
ingly and rarely, as |eiVos, jjlovvos, yovvara, Kovpos, Sovpi. — Pref, 
xiil 

65. The first syllable of ael, l&ixai, larpbs, Aiav, and others, is 
common. — Pref. xvii. 

66. Te and ye can never form the second syllable of a trisyllabic 
foot in the tragic Iambic senary, nor the first syllable of a trisyllabic 
fooLin trochaic metre. — Pref. xvii. 

Compounds from icepas do not admit a?, but either Kepas is re- 
tained entire, which is the case before the labials /3 and <p ; or some- 
times the last syllable of the old genitive Kepeos is dropped (/cepeaA/^s), 
sometimes the last letter of the old nominative icepas. The Attics 
therefore say Kepo^drns, KepoSeTos, KepovAKos, Kepocp6pos, Keporvnetv. 
Of less frequent occurrence, yet genuine, are KepdafSoAos and Kepac- 



* This canon is not expressed with the usual accuracy of the 
learned Professor. When Kal forms the crasis with a diphthong 
containing an iota, then the iota is added, otherwise not : thus, Kal 
€Jra = Kdra. but Kal ov = kov. 



blomfield's canons. 201 

<j>6pos. (Eur. Ph. 255.) Similarly in the compounds of Kp4as 9 the 
Attics never say KpecoSaiaia, KpeaKoirelv, but always use the short 
vowel — Pre/, ix. 

No noun compounded of es-, as e<ro8os, is found in comic writers. 
Very seldom indeed, and I doubt if in any but corrupt places, do 
they use es before a vowel. — Pre/. Ix. 



II. 

CANONS AND EEMAEKS 

By Dr. BLOMFIELD. 



From the " Classical Journal," vol. xxxvii. p. 275., 
vol. xxxix. p. 141. 



Prometheus Vinctus. 

1. The ancient Greek poets sometimes lengthened a privative, 
and in aOdvaros always. 193. 

2. 'Evindris, not evireiOris, is the proper form in the tragic writers. 
It is formed from the second aorist, as evyevrjs, euo-TaA^s, evAafiris, 
and many others. 341. 

3. The Athenians were accustomed to estimate the nobility of a 
family by the number of horses which it kept for the Olympic 
games. 475. 

4. Kviaa, Kpiaa, Kpiacuos, KovicraXos, not Kviao-a, &c. is the proper 
orth/ graphy. It may be observed in general, that transcribers 
doubled the sigma, wherever it was possible without offendiug 
against quantity; as in Tldpmaos, Kaadvdpa, &c. See Gloss. 53. 
505. 

5. Avtos 7rpbs avrov, not irpbs avrbs atrov, 787. 

6. The Attic writers preserved the terminations of numbers in 
composition. Thus they said, irevT7)KovTd'ncLis, tt^vts^vos, &c. 878. 

7. The ancients when they quoted a proverb, the author of which 



202 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

was unknown, used to say, Kara rovs o~o(povs, or coy Aey ovaiv ol o~o<pol. 
913. 

8. In the active voice, fj.e\€iu signifies curce esse, to be an object 
of care ; in the middle voice only peAfoBai denotes curare, to take 
care. Gloss. 3. 

9. ^.rtpyco, cequo animo fero, to bear patiently [or rather to be 
content with, to submit to] ; in which sense aya-ndoo is also used. 
2t6^7cc sometimes, though seldom, governs a dative case. Gloss. 
11. 

10. Tidy os, a hill; from the old word irayca, pango, to build; 
because in the first ages men were accustomed to build their huts 
on the more elevated situations ; whence, more anciently, irdyos was 
the same as the Latin pagus ; the first syllable of which is long, 
being derived from the iEolic irdyw, sc 71-7770; : the first of irdyos is 
now short, because the more recent Greeks formed it after their 
usual manner from the 2nd aorist of irqyvvij.i. Gloss. 20. 

11. The last syllable of irepa is always long. Gloss. 30. 

12. Aiaropos, or Aidropos, perforating or perforated, according 
as it is paroxyton, or proparoxyton ; it is used in both senses. 
Gloss. 76. 

13. Ku/cAos, a circle, an orb is sometimes put simply for the sun 
Philoct. 815. Gloss. 91. 

14. Mvpia signifies iroWa, and is a metaphor taken from fluids; 
from fivpcc, to flow. Gloss. 94. 

15. Taybs is one who arranges; a military word, from rdcro-w. 
The first syllable is always long ; but of ray^j and its compounds, 
short. Gloss. 96. 

16. 'OS/U77, the ancient Attic form for oo-fx-f], Photius and Thomas 
Magister call it Ionic ; which is also true, for the Ionic and ancient 
Attic dialect were the same. Gloss. 115. 

17. 'EKTr\7)o-(Tw, to drive out, is followed by an accusative either of 
the person or the thing. Gloss. 136. 

18. XaAc£o>, to loosen, is properly said of ship ropes. Gloss. 
183. 

19. ^Topecw, sterno, to spread, for which the Attics said arSpw/ja. 
Hence the Latin word sterno. Gloss. 198. 

20. A7}0€i/, scilicet: this particle, generally joined with ws and 
a participle, adds somewhat of irony to the sentence in which it 
occurs. Sometimes it is found without &s, as Trach. 382. 
Gloss. 210. 



— 



blomfield's canons. 203 

21. Diminutives ending in vAos have something of blandishment 
in them, as ai/mvAos from ai/j.cau t TjdvAos from ijSvs, /jukkvAos from 
/jl'ikkos or fiiKpos, epwrvAos from epoos, bcrixvAos, alavAos, AlaxvAos, 
Xpe/jivKos. The form seems to be JEolic, because it is preserved in 
Latin ; as in the diminutives parvulus, tremulus, and especially 
semulus, which is in fact nothing more than the Greek word al/xvAos. 
All the words of this kind are paroxyton, and short in the penult. 
Gloss. 214. 

22. Adverbs, of whatever form, are not derived from the genitive, 
as grammarians suppose, but from the dative case of nouns. The 
greater part of those deduced from the dative plural end in cos (sc. ois); 
some from the dative singular in ei or i. Those which were formed 
from nouns ending in t] or a, were anciently written with ei, since 
they were nothing else than datives, so written before the invention 
of the letters 77 and 00. Thus from fioe, gen. fioes, dat. j8oe?, arose 
avTofioei. But the dative of nouns ending in os was formerly thus 
formed; oTkos, dat. oXkoi, a-rparbs, dat. o-rpaToi; therefore all adverbs 
derived from words of this kind anciently ended in 01 ; which is 
evident from the adverbs oVkoi, 7re5o?, dpfioT, ev5o?, which still retain 
the old termination. Afterwards the was omitted, lest the adverb 
should be confounded with the nominative plural. Thus from frfxaxos 
is formed dfiaxl, n °t a^X 6 ^ from frvaros dvarl, from d^dxiTos 
dfJLaxv T ^ from do-revatcTos darej/aKrl, &c. The ancient form was 
frequently corrupted by transcribers', because they were not aware 
that the final 1 is sometimes long and sometimes short : short, as 
d/j,oyr)T? f Iliad A. 636.; fieyaAcoo-r'i, X 26.; fisAe'Cart, H. 409.; dcrTemKT?, 
iEschyl. ap. Athen. vii. p. 303. C; dwpX, Aristoph. Eccles. 737., 
Theocrit. x. 40., xxiv. 38.: long, as dvidpcorl, Iliad. O. 226 ; do-irovSi, 
O. 476.; dvaifxooTl) P. 363.; dvovTTjri, X. 371.; juer adroiyl-i ¥• 358.; 
iyKvrl, Archilochus, Etym. M. p. 311. 40. (yet the last syllable of 
the same word is made short by Callimachus. Suid. v. i^xpv) *> 
daraKTl, CE. C. 1646.; a/cpoj/vxv Meleager, Brunck, Anal. i. p. 10.; 
dicAavTi, Callim. fr. ccccxviii. Gentile adverbs ending in n, as 
Awpiarl fyvyiarl, &c, have the last syllable always short. Gloss. 
216.* 

* There is, however, a class of adverbs ending in a>s, as 5ia<£epoV- 
tcos, irdvrtas, uvroas, d(T<paAoos, d\r)8<£s, &c. which seems more probably 
formed from the genitive than the dat. plural. See Dunbar's 
Article in the Class. Journ. vol. xiii. p. 75. 



2(H HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

23. Adjectives ending in us, when compounded with another word, 
change the vs into 77 s, as /j.e\ajuL&ad7]s, irTepvyooKrjs, Kwodapays, &c. 
Gloss. 1227. 

24. 'AvTa/Atifionai, to requite, takes either a dative or a genitive 
case. Gloss. 231. 

25. N7?Aed>s is formed from dv7)\tu>s hy aphairesis, not from the 
privative particle ^77, which is not a Greek word. So there is vrja-ris 
and &vricrTis, vriyperos and dwnyperos, vtyepos and dvf]v€jj.os, vv\- 
Kova-reu) and dvriKovvTzw, j/7]K€o-tov and dvr}Kzarov, 'N-qXeyrjs is used 
for dvakeyris, vqirevOTis for ava-wtvQris, vqjJLepr^s for cVa/^epr^s (Hesych.), 
by eliding a, and changing a into 77 Ionice. 'AvaKnros occurs 
Theocr. vi. 36., for which there is vrjXnros Apoll. Rh. iii. 646. Gloss. 
248. 

26. Qaicos is the form used by the Attic poets : O&kos seems to be 
Ionic. Gloss. 288. 

27. MeTa in composition signifies change or alteration. Gloss. 
317. 

28. Z77AW (re, invidendum te puto ; I think you enviable. This is 
a form of speaking which congratulates with some admiration. 
Maimpifa is frequently, oA/3i£a> but seldom, used in this sense. See 
Valckn. Theocr. Adoniaz. p. 415. Gloss. 338. 

29. Ilapa in composition very frequently conveys the idea of 
weakness or uselessness; as irap-fjopos and irapdrouos, Alcest. 400. 
Gloss. 371. 

30. "Ai's, orcus, the same as A'/Stjs, but with the soft breathing ; 
the Attics said ai's, but AiStjs, olarbs, a'tcrcro), &c. Gloss. 442. 

31. $vpoo, commisceo, to mingle; the more recent form is (pvpdca, 
which occurs Theb. 48. Gloss. 459. 

32. "Trrap, verurn somnium, a true dream : Horn. Od. T. 547. Ou/c 
uvap, a\X' v-rrap iaBXbv, % koX TcreXeafieuou earai. Gloss. 495. 

33. The first syllable of Xnrapeu is long, because it is formed from 
\nrap7)s. Gloss. 529. 

34. Attuo), pronunciOy to utter, has the penult common. It is 
short. P. V. 613., Theb. 143., Pers. 123., Equit. 1023. It is long, 
Hec. 156., and Eur. Suppl. 800. Gloss. 613. 

35. Words compounded with ttAtVctuj, as olcrrpoirXril, are all 
oxyton, except ftnrAaff. Gloss. 702. 

36. Xpi/uurTGo, propinquo, to approach. The most ancient mode of 



blomfield's canons. 205 

writing this word was Xp'urrw ; in which fx was afterwards inserted 
for the sake of euphony. Gloss. 738. 

37. 2vXd<a, spolio, to plunder, requires an accusative of the person 
and an accusative or genitive (but more frequently an accusative) of 
the thing. Gloss. 786. 

38. Xdpiv deo-dcu, t16€(t6cu, and even Btivai, signifies to confer a 
favor. Gloss. 807. 

39. "Airvpos, ardentissimus. In some words a is intensive, and 
is said by grammarians iwiraa-iv StjXovj/: so dMicpvTos for rroXv- 
SdKpvros, in Soph. Trachin. 106., Antig. 881., a|uAo> uAr?, Homer, 
II. A. 135., anvpos, in the sense of sine igne, is used Agam. 71. 
Gloss. 905. 

PERS.E. 

1. The tragic writers made the first syllable of firos short; but in 
laodeos they necessarily lengthened the iota, in order that the word 
might be adapted to verse. The same thing took place in dBdvaros, 
aKdjxcLTos, dirapd/ixvOos. They said Btrjcpopos, do"irid7i(p6pos, eXacprifiSXos, 
and the like, rather than Oeocpopos, damdocpopos, iXacpofioXos, for the 
same reason, viz., that the concurrence of four or more short sylla- 
bles might be avoided. 81. 

2. Kvdveou, according to Burney, is a trisyllable ; but since Khavov 
is the name of a metal, Kvdveov is more correctly written kvclvovv. 
Phrynichus, Xpty ovv Xiysiv XP V(T "> dpyvpa, Kvava, rbv 'ArriKL^opra. — 
Xpvaovs Xeye* rb yap xpvveos 'laKbv, waavrws Ktti apyvpovs, x^A/cous, 
kvwovs, koX ojjlolcl. The first syllable of tcvdveos is always long in 
Homer ; as also in Soph. Antig. 966., Eurip. Androm. 856. 1003., 
Tro. 1094. 83. 

3. An inhabitant of Syria was called ^vpos ; an inhabitant of the 
island of Syros (one of the Cyclades), 2vpios. 86. 

4. It is uncertain whether the tragic writers used the present im- 
perative of yiyvotiai. 176. 

5. As often as ttoXvs is joined with an epithet, the particle teal 
intervenes, though it adds nothing to the sense. This remark is 
true of all the ancient Greek writers. 249. 

6. The more ancient Attic forms were KeXeva-fxa, yyecarbs, KXavcrrbs, 
7]fjLLKav(rTos, KaTaxv&fAaTa, Kpovcr/xa : in the more modern the sigma 
was dropped. 403. 



206 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

7. Atya, tjs, is the more ancient, Styos, eos, the more modern form. 
490. 

8. The first syllable of aiw is short, Pers. 639., Agam. 55., CE. C. 
1767., Hec. 178.; and long, Eumen. 841., CE. C. 304., Hec. 174., 
Vesp. 516. 639. 

9. The imperfect of iar6k\vfu is but seldom used by the tragic 
writers. Soph. Electr. 1360.: aAA' i/ue Adyois cnrdbWvs. CE. R. 1454.: 
'Lv e| eV-eiVwv, oi jx aircoWvrTjv, Qdvca. 658. 

10. From <pdw is formed TTKpdaKco, as from 5ao> StSacr/cco, from /3aa> 
fBifidcTKcv, which should be replaced in Homer for the anomalous word 
pifidadu). But the iEolic form iricpava-Koo is more frequently found in 
Homer. 668. 

11. 'lOvvu, not zvOvvw, is the more ancient Homeric and poetic 
word ; for the Attics used evdvva>, evdvvos, evdvv-n, &c, only in po- 
litical affairs. That I6vs was the ancient Attic word is proved by the 
compounds Wvrevrjs, IdvcpaWos, Idaycvrjs. 779. 

12. The Greeks said 2aXojuivt5es and SaAa/xiwaSes, not 2aAa- 
yLuz/75es; as also Xei/jLcwiSes and AeijuoovidSes; Kprjvides and KpqvidSes. 
965. 

13. 'Acpvebs, op ulentus, wealthy : the more common form is cupveios- 
Gloss. 3. 

14. neSoa-T^s, terra incedens, walking on the ground. This word 
frequently occurs in Euripides. Compounds in <TTifir)s sometimes 
have a passive signification; as TiXioaTifirjs, P. V. 816. acmffis, Theb* 
857. Gloss. 132. 

15. j Ej/ v/jl7u, penes te sunt, depend on you. The same meaning 
obtains, CE. R. 314.: y Eu <ro\ yap iafxei/. See also Aj. Fl. 519., 
Phceniss. 1265., Iph. A. 1379., Helen. 1441. Gloss. 177. 

16. Aeiraduoy, averta ; Anglice, a poitrel or breast-band, which 
performed the office of the collar with us. The word is formed from 
Ae7ra£w, decortico, to strip off the bark. Photius makes XtivaSvov and 
Aiao-xaAtcrT77p the same. Gloss. 196. 

17. 2pa5a£o>, luctor, to struggle ; properly said of those who are 
in the agonies of death. Gloss. 199. 

18. 4>auAos and (pAavpos are used in the same sense; but cpavXos is 
more frequently applied to persons, and <p\avpos to things. Their 
derivations are different. That is properly called <p\avpov which is 
light, and of no weight. From its parent word <£Aea> are derived 
</>Aev//, (p\eos, <p\&wv, (bXdu, <p\iyo) } <p\va£ f (pAoLos, (pho7af5os 7 (p\va>, 



blomfield's canons. 207 

<p\vapbs, (pXavpos ; all of which have a notion of lightness and empti- 
ness. Gloss. 222. 

19. 'A/A^v is, to scrape with the hand, sc. the sand, and to make 
level, from ajua: hence ajxavpbv is, whatever is levelled with the 
ground. Of the same family are oLfxaQos, arena, the sand ; and 
a/jLadvveo, to erase, as letters written on the sand: likewise afxaXbv, 
plane, and a/xaA5vVa>, to render plane ; and all of them perhaps ought 
to be aspirated. Gloss. 288. 

20. The ancients only used the plural form dva-fial, occasus, the 
setting, sc. of the sun, or the West. On the contrary, Si/Vis was 
always put in the singular. Gloss. 237. 

2 1. The particle (a is nothing else but the iEolic form of dia, which 
has an intensive force, like per in Latin. Thus Alcams said (dfyAov 
for diddrjAov : Sappho, £aeAe K(rdfxa.v for hie\^dfxr]v. Therefore we 
find (ddeos, (afievys, £d7r\ovTOS, {cnroTrjs, £arpe(pr]s, C a( P € yy : h s > Cdxpvaos 
(axpyos. Gloss. 321. 

22. "Ews, in the sense of donee, until, requires the aorist [indi- 
cative]. Sometimes but seldom, it is followed by the aorist optative. 
But when it signifies dum, quamdiu, whilst, as long as> it requires the 
present or imperfect. Gloss. 423. 

23. NofMifciv signifies to believe in the existence of. He who 
believed in the gods was said absolutely Oeovs vo^Ii^iv or fjyeTo-dai. 
Gloss. 504. 

24. Ui/jLTrpr}fja, incendo, to burn. Perhaps the first /j. was in- 
serted by the later Greeks ; and the ancients wrote TriirprjijLL and 
iriirX-qfjn, according to the usual form of verbs in pa. 'EiwrnrpTj/u 
occurs in Aristot. Hist. Anim. v. 1. as also frequently in He- 
rodotus, — i/LLTrlirArj/iLi, Homer, II. $. oil. Nor is the quantity of the 
syllable any objection. See Erfurdt, Soph. (E. R. p. 414. Gloss. 
815. 

25. In the Tragic writers the plural of ^inri^iov is used, not the 
singular. Gloss. 828. 

26. From the ancient word irvvw, the first syllable of which is 
long (and its perf. pass, frequently occurs in Homer), is formed 
irivva-Kca, in the same way that yivwvKv is formed from yv&w. Gloss. 
835. 

27. i Avix°[ JLal i sustineo, to bear or endure, is joined with a parti- 
ciple. See Dr. Monk's Hipp. 354. Gloss. 843. 



208 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 



Septem cojpka Thebas. 

1. 'E7r), in the sense of contra, is sometimes used with a dative 
case by iEschylus. See Sept. Theb. 711., Agam. 60., P. V. 1124., 
though with the genitive more generally. 1. 

2. The article is frequently used for the relative : robs for ots 
Pers. 43., rovirep for o'tmep ibid. 780., t60w for ftdev ibid. 780., tV for 1 
V Agam. 644. &c. 37. 

3. The tragic writers used the Doric forms Kvvaybs, Kvvayioo, 
Kvvayerris, Xox^yerris, efido/jLuyerris. 42. 

4. Brunck and Schiitz prefer as more Attic irXeviJLwv instead of 
irvevfioov, but the latter is the more recent Attic form. The gram- 
marians indeed side with Brunck ; but then it is well known that 
they derived their rules for the most part from iElian, Libanius, 
Aristides, and other sophists, sometimes from Lucian, more rarely 
from the historians or Plato, and very seldom indeed from the 
scenic poets. 61. 

5. The Ionic vnbs for mbs was not used in the iambic senarius. 
62. 

6. EvxofiaL is frequently omitted before an infinitive mood. See 
Sept. Theb. 239., Choeph. 304., Eurip. Suppl. 3. 75. 

7. T/o) has the first syllable common in Homer, but short in 
JEschylus and Aristophanes. The first syllable of t'ktoo is always 
long. 77. 

8. The first syllable of v Apr}s is sometimes long, as in 125. 336. 
465. 

9. Adjectives compounded of nouns in os generally retain the 
termination os : thus words compounded of \6yos, rpdxos &c. in 
the tragic writers never end in as, that termination being more 
modern and less agreeable to analogy. 109. 

10. Some adjectives have the three terminations, eios, tos, ikos, 
as 7-jrireioSj '{ttttios, IttttikSs ; SotAeios, Sovkios, SovMkos, &C. The 
first of these three forms is used only on account of the metre. 
116. 

11. The last syllable of -nojvia is always short. 141. 

12. The probable orthography of x v ^ a 1S KJ/ ^ a - From kv4w is 
derived kvovs and Kvda, as from £e'«, povs and p6a ; from x €w > X°^ s 
and x^ a - 142 « 



blomfield's canons. 209 

13. Mr/ sometimes forms a crasis with el and els. 193. 

14. The tragic writers never join 5e and re. 215?. 

15. The words 'Xv roi are never construed except with the in- 
dicative. 220. 

16. Ovtl nowhere begins a sentence, unless /*??, nov, or irS>5 follows, 
or when there is an interrogation, and then a word is always in- 
terposed between them. The formula aAA.' ovtl is frequent at the 
head of a sentence. 222. 

17. Nuv is always an enclitic when it is subjoined to the particle 
firj. 228. 

18. 'AiroXeyoo is a word unheard of by the tragic writers. 259. 

19. The Attics wrote difios and 8t?os, not dd'ios and 8S.os, as is clear 
from the compounds STjiaAwros, dBrjos, and the verb Sydcc. Aaios, 
however, is the proper orthography when it signifies ddAios. 264. 

20. Ne'a? is a monosyllable. 316. 

21. *D.s, in the sense of adeo ut, is only found with the infinitive. 
361. 

22. 'YirepKOTros, not virepKofxiros, is the form used by the tragic 
writers ; for there is no passage in them where the metre requires 
the latter form, some where it rejects it. A later age, as it seems, 
inserted the /*. 387. 

23. "Avoia and similar compounds very rarely produce the last 
syllable ; in iEschylus never. 398. 

24. "A fx^j Kpavoi 6e6s. In prayers of this kind the aorist is more 
usual than the present. 422. 

25. 'lets in the tragic writers has the first syllable common, but 
oftener short. 489. 

26. TV is never put for tovtco with a substantive. 505. 

27. Eft?e yap is scarcely Greek. Utinam is expressed by el or el 
yap, never by eWe yap. 563. 

28. UoXeixapxos, not TloXefidpxas. That the Attics terminated 
compounds of this kind by x°* may be inferred from the circum- 
stance that their proper names were "linrapxos, Neapxos, KAeapxos. 
828. 

29. In the Attic poets probably fxeAeoi in the vocative is always a 
dissyllable. 945. 

30. Upayos is a more tragic word than irpayfxa. Gl. 2. 

31. Words compounded of podos were favourites with iEschylus, 
as iroXvppodos, raxvppodoSj eirippoQos, a\ippo9os, iraAippodos, &c. Gl. 7* 



210 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

32. From oXfxoi is derived olfjuofa, as from /uu, imvfa ; from <5, 
&fa [from at at, aldfa ; from ot ct, olfa ; from e'AeAeD, i\e\i(w ; 
from ototoi, drorvfa ; from au, atioo and aih-ew ; from cpeD, <p€vfa ; 
from evol, eua^w]. Oi/j,wyi) is more frequently used than oi^y^a. 
Gl. 8. 

33. When 'EAAe/7ra> signifies d^ficio, absum, it requires a genitive ; 
when it signifies omitto, it is followed by an accusative. Gl. 10. 

34. Ylvpywixa is a fortification, or a collection of irvpyoi. : just 
as x aiTU 'i ua ana TpiX a) / JL(l are a collection of x°" TC " and Tpt'x«. Gl. 
30. 

35. nai>a>Ae0pos has both an active and a passive signification. 
GL 71. 

36. The tragic writers use both Aabs and its Attic form Aeojs. 
Gl. 80. | 

37. 'AjuaxeTos is used but rarely for dfiaxos and a/xax^Tos. Gl. 
85. 

38. Avfteios, an epithet of Apollo, is derived from Au/07, diluculum, 
whence the Latin lux. Gl. 133. 

39. From the obsolete verb \t}kco are derived the perfect Ae'Ad/ca 
and the second aor. sXanov. Gl. 141. 

40. BpiOca sometimes, though rarely, has an active signification, 
" to load." It is more generally used intransitively, " to be heavy." 
Gl. 141. 

41. The tragic writers frequently used nouns in as, as Aiflas-, a 
heap or shower of stones ; vi<pas, a shower of snow ; <pv\\as, a, heap 
of leaves, &c. Gl. 146. 

42. 2x670?, sustineo, non admitto, is properly said of a ship 
which is water-tight. Gl. 202. 

43. "Ekt)\os is formed from the obsolete verb 6ko>, volo : as from 
(Tiydu) or 0-170), <nyr\X6s ; from aiVxiW, a.lcrxv^rr)\6s ; from ftf/j, fyr}- 
\6s ; from /3e/3aw, Pe$n\6s. Gl. 224. 

44. 2aiVeu' is said of a dog who wags his tail and fawns : thence, 
to flatter. Gl. 379. 

45. The penult of aXvco is short in Homer, and long in other 
Greek poets. In the Odyssey, I. 398., aAiW has the penult long, 
which would lead to the supposition that the passage where it occurs 
was not Homer's, though it is quoted by an old grammarian in 
Kustath. II. Z. p. 654, 55. Gl. 387. 

4U The Greeks used 6avaT7i(p6pos, AafjLTratirjtydpos, 6e(T(parriX6yos 1 



_ 



BLOMFIELDS CANONS. 211 

xQoviricpopos, and the like, instead of damrotyopos, &c. to avoid the 
concurrence of four short syllables. Gl. 415. 

47. ^H fityv, certe, is a formula of confirmation, used in case of an 
oath. Gl. 527. 

48. Words ending in rjo-rrjs are very rare. Gl. 641. 

49. Sruyo?, odium, is frequently used by iEschylus, but very 
seldom by others. Gl. 650. 

50. Tpew is a Doric word, very seldom used by the tragic writers 
except in the aorist. Gl. 790. 

51. Words compounded of kotos were favorites with JEschylus. 
Gl. 804. 

52. 'OkoXvyfibs is a female cry or shriek. Gl. 825. 

53. 'AAaAa{co strictly means, to raise the shout of triumph ; some- 
times simply ejulo. Gl. 951. 

54. 'AdeKrpebs nowhere occurs in the tragic writers except in the 
choral odes. Add. 537. 



Agamemnon. 

1. KA.auo, Kaicc, &c. were the more ancient Attic forms, for 
which, subsequent to the time of iEschylus, K\dw, kclco, &c. were 
used. 17. 

2. 'Ed\ooKa and TJAco/ca are both found in the best Greek writers ; 
the former is more ancient, the latter more modern Attic. 29. 

3. It is doubtful whether xpw a or XP l(T ^ a * s tne better form. 
From xpioo (the first syllable being always long) was deduced 
XpitfTb?, as from xpao^ucu, xp 7 1 (rT ^. But the substantive was xpV^ ; 
so from xp' La> > XW a > from Kovtca, Kovifjux ; from fitivUa, fifyifia. 93. 

4. Adjectives compounded of the dative Sooi, or dovpl, retained 
the iota in composition, as dopiKrrjros, doupiaXcoTos, SopiXritrTOs, dovpi- 
TreT^s, Bopipavrjs, dopidrjparos, dopiixapyos. But those which are formed 
from the accusative retain the i>, as dupvcpopos, dopvaaoos, dopv^oos 
dopvxpavos. 115. 

5. Diminutives of animals terminate in iSeus. 117. 

6. Toiovtov and roaovrov are the Attic forms of the neuter gender ; 
tomvto and roo-ovro the Ionic. 306. 

7. The Attics said hiQLKoveh rather than SiyKoveiv. 310. 

8. Ev aefieiv deous and evaefielv els Otovs differ : the former sig- 
nifies, duly to worship the gods ; the latter, to conduct oneself 



212 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

piously towards the gods : the latter cannot have an accusative after 
it except with a preposition. 329. 

9. The Attics used aAiV/cojuat in. the present, and adopted the 
Other tenses from d\6w, whence also avaKow. Wherefore the opta- 
tive should be written okyw, as Piyrjv, f>(pr)v, and the like. 331. 

10. "Ows av does not precede the optative, except in the sense 
of quo maxime modo. When onus signifies ut, it requires the sub- 
junctive with, or the optative without av. 357. 

11. "Htoi is not used by the tragic writers for sane, unless followed 
by 5pa or av. 462. 

12. In solemn appeals, such as Horn. II. E. 116., 

Et' nore jnoi /cat irarpl <pi\a <ppoveovo~a TrapearTjs 
Arjico iv Tro\€/j.q} } vvv avr ifie (j)l\ai f i A6'f]vn ) 

€? Trore is more frequently used than d irov. 503. 

13. Apocroi Kare^€Ka(ov, ejiire^ov vivos 
'EadrijjLdTCtiV, ridevres evdrjpov Tpt^a. 

Here the young scholar will remark that the masculine participle 
riOevres agrees with the feminine noun dpoaoi ; of which anomaly 
perhaps no other instance can be found in the Attic poets, except 
in the case of animals. 544. 

14. Ucos av with the optative frequently signifies utinam in Eu- 
ripides, much more rarely in the other tragic writers, perhaps never 
in iEschylus. 605. 

15. Tap is frequently used in interrogative sentences, [and may be 
translated by, what ?]. 613. 

16. Atat, dTrat, and viral occur in the Greek poets for the more 
common forms 5ta, cbrb, and vtto. 865. 

17. (dvpalos is said of a person even in the feminine gender: dvpaia 
of a thing in the same gender. 1022. 

18. The penult is -k\t\Qw is short ; of tAt^iW, long. 1341. 

19. The primary meaning of Bikt) was probably likeness, simili- 
tude : whence Biicr]\ov, an image ; and biicnv, for /card Siktjv, instar, 
like. Gl. 3. 

20. Bods eirl yXuao-p is a well-known proverb, and said of those 
who being bribed do not mention those things they ought to disclose, 
and then applied to others who through dread or fear of punishment 
dare not speak out freely. The origin of the proverb may probably 



blomfield's canons. 213 

have been derived from the custom among the ancients of holding 
in their mouths the coins which they received from the sale of their 
wares. A similar phrase occurs in Soph. (Ed. C. 1051. xP v(r * a 
K\els eVl yXcccro-a /3e/3aKei>. Gl. 35. 

21. According as friendship, hospitality, an oath, [supplication,] 
companionship, or purification, was referred to, Jupiter was invoked 
by the title of (piAios, |eVios, or Scpiarios, optcios, \_lk€<tios^ eraipelos, or 
KaOdpaios. Gl. 60. 

22. Such expressions as eVrz 8' onr) vvv ecrri, are used where a 
speaker alludes to an unpleasant subject, and thus briefly dismisses 
it. Gl. 66. 

23. It was the custom of the poets, when they made use of a 
trope somewhat too bold, immediately to subjoin the epithet in order 
to limit and define its meaning. In the P. V. 828. JEschylus calls 
Tpviras, Zrjvbs kvvols ; but he corrects the metaphor in some degree by 
adding aKpayets, " dogs indeed, but not barking dogs." Sept. Theb. 
64., he calls an army kv/jlcl, but adds xep<ratov. Ibid. 82., dust is 
called a messenger, but avavdos. Ibid. 856., he calls Charon's boat 
devpida, but immediately adds rdv darifirj VoAAa^, to distinguish it 
from the true Qeupis. Gl. 81. 

24. The origin of fy, evo?, and similar exclamations, is not to be 
sought in the Greek language, but in that of the nation to which 
Greece owes its mythology, sc. the Egyptian. Gl. 144. 

25. TLepa is the dative of the obsolete irepa, irepas, 7repa, irepav, 
and hence the reason why the last syllable is long. Gl. 183. 

26. 'Ai/fyojy, ywaiKeicbv, [TzapQevuov^ &c. were elliptic expressions 
originally for dvdpoov, yvvaiKcjov, \jrapQtvoov] (OaAa/xos), whence the 
genitive came into use for the nominative. Gl. 235. 

27. The participle of the perfect passive is frequently used ac- 
tively, as 7T67ri;(r i ueVos, rJKiafxevos, i^rjpTracr/jLevos, irecppayfiei/os, £kk€Kojjll- 
(TfAevos, avaKeKO/j.KT/jL£vos, cnro8edeiy/iL<Ei/os, &c. Gl. 252. 

28. "Apio-Tuv was the first meal which the ancients took in the 
morning, and generally about the third hour. Philemon, however, 
asserts that the meals were aKpaTi(r/j.a, Hpicnov, tan e pur pa, and de?irj/oy. 
Gl. 322. 

29. AoyxtfJ-os, ad hastam pertinens. Similar forms are exOipos, 

iroivifJLOS, SoKl/LlOS, TTOfATTl/JLOS, Tp6(plfJLOS, Cipivdyi/iXOS, KoipTTllXOS, ^LOPL/ULOSt 

TrapafiouL/xos, away cloy i[xos t ^Kkljuos, KaWifjioSy Kvdi/xos, oo(p4\ijjL05 
aoiBL/j.os. Verbal adjectives in ijjlos are of a different class, as aAa>_ 

p 3 



214 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

aifjLos, and have a certain middle signification between the active and 
passive. Gl. 395. and Gl. 9. 

30. 'Pi/x0a» celeriUr, is derived from fiijuirTcc, the Ionic form of 
fi'nrTu ; whence (ttfxcpdKeos and ^L/jLcpapiuaTos, With the same variety, 
the Ionians, i. e. the Hellenes, said xpfywrTcu for xpiVtco, and Aa/iif/ojuoi 
for \i)\po/j.ai. GL 397. 

31. In compounds from #pos, the Ionic form ovpos is retained in 
£vvovpos f tinrcvpos, irpoaovpos, ri]\ovpbs, which is not the case in 
bfxopos. Gl. 478. 

32. 'Avaivo/j.ai, to deny, is joined with a participle of the person 
speaking. Gl. 566. 

33. Adjectives masculine are sometimes found with feminine sub- 
stantives, as TvxV (Toorfyp, x^p 7rpaKTcop, -rreidcb 64\Krup. Gl. 647. 

34. r4j/ed\ov is a word only used by the poets. Gl. 757. 

35. It is doubtful whether the form x a ' lV(a m the present is found 
in the more ancient Greek writers. Gl. 893. 

36. " Solebant veteres ante cibum vi\paa9ai manus, et post cibum 
airoj/tyacrdcu, teste Polluce, quern Stanleius advocavit." Gl. 1004. 

37. 3(paye?ov, the vessel which received the blood of victims.* 
Gl. 1060. 

38. KeAo/uai, though frequent in Homer, seldom occurs in the 
tragic writers. Gl. 1088. 

39. 'EiroTrrevw, inspecto, is a word frequently used by iEschylus, 
but not by the other tragic writers- Its proper signification, at least 
in Attic Greek, is, to behold the mysteries. Gl. 1241. 

40. EvfjLaprjs, facilis, is formed from an old word p-dpy, a hand ; 
as from x € fy>, rf%«p4*« Gl. 1297. 

41. UacrcroiJiai, vescor, in which sense it is used only in the aorist, 
and joined with an accusative or genitive. The simple form was 
7raa>, whence -nareo), and pasco : iraaaaBai, vesci, has the first syl- 
lable short; -ncLvaaBai, possidere, has the first syllable Jong, Gl. 
1380. 

42. C/ Ea>s, when it signifies quamdiu, and is joined to the perfect, 
or when with the present it signifies dum, does not take the particle 
&v: as often as it means donee it requires &v and the subjunctive 
mood, or the optative without av. Gl. 1410. 

* It is used, however, sometimes for a victim. See Eur. Troad. 
742. 



blomfield's canons. 215 

43. The plural number [when used for the singular] increases 
the force of the sentence, whether it be sarcasm or panegyric. Gl. 
1414. 

44. There is frequent mention of stoning in the ancient writers, 
which species of punishment was employed by the people when 
excited by sudden indignation, because stones always lay at hand. 
Gl. 1606. 

45. Moyeco is an Homeric word, less frequently used by the tragic 
writers, with whom the more common word is (aoxOccc. The primi- 
tive root was fi6<a (whence moveo, by an increase in the number of 
syllables, arid the insertion of the digamma). Hence (Aoepbs, /mcophst 
mobilis, (whence lojAOipos, iyx eaL f jiW P 0S > vAaKo/xoopos,*) /j-oyis, poyos^ 
ftSxOos, &c. Gl. 1614. 

46. Words ending in ir^s may be called locals; as SayiaTmjs, 
X(*>pirr)s 9 kdpirrjs, eairepirrjs, &c. Gl. 1640. 941. 47. 

Choephorge. 

1. It may be doubted whether the future of avavGu occurs at all 
in the Attic poets. 125. 

2. "Oircos fib, with the future indicative and with the aorist sub- 
junctive, is correct ; and therefore there can be no reason why both 
forms should not be used in the same sentence. 260. 

3. The first syllable of Saifa is common in iEschylus, after the 
example of Homer. 390. 

4. The particles kcl\ 5^ are perhaps never joined with the optative. 
557. 

5. The Greeks said, not iroWa 5ei*/&, but iroAAa kclI Seivd. 578. 

6. If such forms as rts &v (ry/caAeVcuro ; (Agam. 989.), tis av ravra 
irieoiTo; (S. c. Th. 1068.), t:s av ei/£arro ; (Agam. 1312.), &c. be right, 
then ris \eyoi; cannot be correct, 586. 

7. A short vowel before a mute with a liquid may be made long 
in the choral metres. 597. 

8. ^Kaaa is the more ancient, fJKaaa the more modern Attic* 
623. 

9. Eli*> • aKovca. The lengthening of a short syllable in this place 
cannot be defended, unless, perhaps, it was the usual form of the 
porter's answer: thy clkovw. 645. 

p4 



216 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

10. When any one to a question ttcos so answers as to doubt of the 
question, the reply is made by uncos. The same rule applies to tIs 
7rt)?, and the like. 755. 

11. The particles aAA' t) are used at the head of interrogative 
sentences. 762. 

12. The tragic writers always used irvArj in the plural. 866. 

13. QiKtcit* Alyiadou /3ia. This is the only instance of the cir- 
cumlocution jBfa nubs joined with an adjective masculine. [Most 
probably a comma should be placed after (pi\rar\ and then there 
will be no necessity to have recourse to the unusual form of speech.] 
880. 

14. Ou /nTj t with the future indicative, forbids, with the aorist sub- 
junctive, denies. 882. 

15. The Greeks did not use avrbv for ifxavrbu, though they said 
avrovs for fffMS avrovs, 1001. 

16. Ka.T€pxo{JLcti signifies to return, as an exile, into his country. 
Gl. 3. 

17. The Greeks, when they attained to the age of puberty, used to 
cut off their hair, and consecrate it to Apollo Kovporp6(pos, and to 
rivers. Theseus commenced the custom; for he consecrated to 
Delian Apollo the hair which he cut. from the fore part of his head. 
Gl. 6. 

18. Tls is sometimes used for iras ris, unusquisque. Gl. 53. 

19. 4>acr/cco, dictito, differs from (prj/ju, as jSac/cw from /Stj/jli, 5t- 
opdo-Koo from Sp^iu, yiyuwaKoo from yvco/ju, [x<xcr/ca> from x ""?] an( ^ 
the like The termination ctkoo denotes repetition of the action. 
Gl. 87. 

20. T(J|o in the plural almost always is put for a single bow in the 
tragic writers. Gl. 155. 

21. 'E/ceT sometimes signifies apud inferos. Gl. 353. 

22. iEschylus was partial to words compounded of itd/wco, as 

doplK/JL7]S, CLVOpOK/iLYlS, &c. Gl. 359. 

23. Feminine nouns ending in rpia are derived from masculines 
97s, as TroAz/uLLO-Tpia from Tro\€/j.Lari]s, ayvprpia from ayvprr)s, (paidpiwrpia 
from (pat's pvvrris. Gl. 418. 

24. Xaipav is construed with a participle of the verb expressive 
of the action with which one is delighted. Gl. 442. 

25. Ovdap, uber, peculiar to the other animals ; fxaarhs was applied 
to women. Gl. 526. 



blomfield's canons. 217 

26. c/ 07rAa denotes any kind of instruments. Gl. 537. 

27. noSairbs, cujas, is formed from the ancient pronoun nbs and 
the substantive Mn-os, the ground. Gl. 567. 

28. Tliofiai. is the ancient future for Triaojxai from 7na?. Aristophanes 
has Triercu, the first syllable being long, Eq. 1286. 1398. The more 
recent form is iriovixai. Theocritus, vii. 69., has the first syllable of 
wio/jLcu short. Gl. 570. 

29. Kioo, vado, is an Homeric word, not used by Sophocles or 
Euripides ; and from it is derived Kivita. Gl. 668. 

30. 3 OirL(r66iros, pedissequa, for diricrdoirovs, as aeAAoVos, OlSiiros, 
ttovAvitos, for deAAdirous, Oldtirovs, ttoXvttovs. Gl. 701. 

31. The Attics said with the Dorics S^fju and ircii/fju for Snpav 
and TT€Li/au : but this did not extend to the third person singular 
of the present indicative [probably because there would have been 
a confusion between the indicative and the subjunctive moods], Gl. 
744. 

32. "Az/a>, perficio, has the penult long in the present, and short in 
the second aorist. Gl. 786. 

33. Avocpepbs, tenebricosus. Except Sv6(pos, dvoiraXifa, and $vb\j/ 9 
no Greek word begins with dv. Gl. 797. 

34. Eustathius, on Horn. II. A. 467., 168., derives eAeyxos from eAelV 
e7x°S because most subjects of dispute were decided by arms. This 
etymology is much more probable than another given in the same 
place, dirb tov i\au iyxos. For skeyxos, the grasping of the spear to 
decide a dispute, was the same as the proof by battle with the Teu- 
tonic nations ; and hence it signified any proof ; and, by an easy 
transition, it denoted argument, reproof, insult. Gl. 838. 

35. Of words ending in crrepTjs, some have a passive signification, 
as iraTpoaTepjjs, 6/j.fA,aToarep7]S, ficoartpris, rjkioaTeprjs ; and some an 
active, as dpyvpoxrr^pijs, ofx/jLarocrrep^s (Eum. 938.), f)\iocrT€p7is ((Ed. C. 
314.). Gl. 989. and 247. 

36. Names of winds ending in fas are formed from other names. 
Gl. 1054. 



2 IS HAND -BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 



III. 

CANONS AND KE1IARKS 

IN THE 

" HIPPOLYTUS " AND "ALCESTIS" OF PROF. MONK. 
From the " Classical Journal," vol. xxxvii. p. 124. 



1. KetcArjiuai is frequently used by the tragic [and other] writers in 
the sense of el/ii. Hipp. 2. 

2. Upeafievoi) sometimes signifies TrpoTi/ndw, to honour or respect. 
So Choeph. 486. rdude irpeafevato rdcpou. Hipp. 5., comp. JEsch. 
Eum. 1. 

3. ©770- e'cos ttcus, 'AfjLd&vos tSkos: this pleonasm, where in prose 
we should have said Qrjorecas Kcd 'Afxd&vos irais or tokos, is not un- 
common. See Blomfield's note Pr. V. 140. Hipp. 10. 

4. ncuSet^a, as also Xox^v^a, jULiarj/j.a, and other neuter words of the 
same class, are used for persons. Moreover, the plural form nai- 
fcvfjLUTu denotes only one individual, sc. Hippolytus, as in Soph. 
Philoct. 86. Tex^/^ara, one cup; Hec. 269. Trpoo-cpdy/jLara, one victim. 
Hipp. II. 

5. IlaAcu 7T poK 6 \f/ a a, ov ttovov ttoWov jug 8e?. TlpoKoif/aa' is here 
a nominativus pendens. Of this solcecism, or archaism, instances 
occur in iEsch. Suppl. 455., Choeph. 518., P. V. 209., OE. C. 1120., 
Phcen. 290. See Kuster, Aristoph. Plut. 277. and Gregor. Corinth, 
p. 33. Hipp. 23. 

6. npoKOTTTca signifies to advance, and is taken metaphorically 
from those who cut down wood and other obstacles in a road. 
Hipp. 23. 

7. The future of cuVe'a? is alp-fja-ca in Homer, and aivtcco in the 
tragic writers. Hipp. 37. 

8. "ApTefiiu ti/jlwv 6eav~\ Not 0eov, as Aldus edited and Valckenaer 
preferred : 77 Bebs occurs frequently in the tragic writers in the sense 



> 



monk's canons. 219 

of a goddess, but never when joined with the name of the goddess, 
as here. Hipp. 55. 

9. 'A|foa> sometimes occurs in the sense of audeo, to dare, as in 
Heracl. 950., Pers. 335. and elsewhere. Hipp. 74. 

10. "Oorris in the singular is frequently followed by and referred to 
a plural. See Antig. 718. 720., Androm. 180., Ran. 714,, Hec. 359, 
360. Hipp. 78., comp. Horn. II. r. 279. 

11. @av/j.d& signifies to pay homage to, or honor. Hipp. 105. 

12. IToAAa x a ' l P €lv (ppdcrcu denotes to bid good bye to, to quit, 
to reject, to discard. See Agam. 583., Acharn. 200. Hipp. 112. 

13. 2,vyyvu>[Ar)v %x* lv signifies (1) to grant pardon, and (2) to 
receive pardon or excuse. The former sense is the more frequent. 
(1) See Eur.Suppl. 252., Orest. 653., Soph. Electr. 400. (2)Phoen. 
1009., Soph. Trach. 328. Hipp. 116. 

14. The penult of $dpos is generally short in the tragic writers, 
but always long in Homer. iEschylus has it long, Choeph. 9. $dpea 
is a dactyl in Iph. T. 1157. and Orest. 1434. Hipp. 125. 

15. 'A-rrXaKeij/, cmXaKia, and air AdK-tyULa, should be always written in 
tragic verse without jn, as is manifest from the fact that there are 
many places in which the metre requires, none where it rejects these 
forms. Hipp. 145. 

16. The penult of y*paihs, deikaios, 'Uraios, &c. is sometimes short. 
See Hipp. 170. and Comp. Gaisford's Hephsest. p. 216. 

17. s ApeV/c&) in Attic Greek requires either a dative or accusative 
case ; but the latter seems to be the more legitimate construction. 
Moeris, p. 175. says, "Hpecre fxe, 'Am/ccos • tfpecre fioi, 'EAAtjv ikws, k<xI 
KOiv&s. Hipp. 184. 

18. The active voice of (rvvdirro} is sometimes used for the middle. 
See Phoen. 714., Heracl. 811., Pers. 888. 

19. $i\os in the poets has frequently the sense of £/jl6s, Hipp. 
199. 

20. Upoairokos signifies either a male or female attendant ; d/j.(pi- 
vroXos only a female attendant. See Eustath. II. I\, p. 394, 31=-299, 1. 
Hipp, 200. 

21. TIcos av denotes, in almost all the tragedies of Euripides, 
utinam, I wish, or, oh that ! but much more rarely in the other 
tragic writers. See, however, (E. R. 765., Aj. Fl. 388. and Philoct. 
794. Hipp. 208. 

22. The iota at the end of the dative singular is very rarely 



220 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

elided by the tragic writers : perhaps there are not more than six 
instances of such elision in all the remains of Greek tragedy. Hipp. 
221., comp. Ale. 1137. 

23. The last syllable of k\ltvs is short in the tragic writers, but 
long in Homer. Hipp. 227. 

24. TlapaKOTTTeiv <ppiuas signifies, to pervert the understanding; but 
TrapaicoTTTeiv, as also irapairuieiis, is more frequently used in a neutral 
sense, to be mad. 

25. Ma?a is said of a grandmother, a midwife, a nurse. The last 
sense is the more frequent meaning of it. Hipp. 243. 

26. 'OWaa>, though used in Hipp. 247., does not occur in any 
other passage in the Greek tragedies. 

27. The last syllable of \iav f &ya.v t itepav, and euai/, is always long 
in the Attic poets. Hipp. 264. 

28. 'Opcc, fxeu . . . &a7)iJLa 8' f)/j.7v. The enallage or change from 
the first person singular to that of the plural, and versa vice, is very 
common in the Greek tragedies. Hipp. 268. 

29. The neuter plural adjective is frequently used instead of the 
singular, aar)/j.a for ^arj/xou, ^vyyvoxna (Hec. 1089., Phcen. 1008., 
Med. 491. 701. &c.) for tfyy vwvrov. Hipp. 269. 

30. "Arri in the tragic writers is said of any calamity, but es- 
pecially of some severe dispensation of Providence. Hipp. 276. 

31. The prepositive article, d, 7] t5, followed by fiev, 8e, yap, is 
frequently used by the tragic writers in the sense of ouros and eKehos. 
Even without these adjuncts, the article, though less frequently, 
possesses this signification. Hipp. 280. 

32. Both the forms irXavos and irKavy] occur in the tragic writers. 
In -ZEschylus the feminine form generally, perhaps invariably, is 
found, whereas Euripides always uses irxduos: from whence it may 
be inferred, that the latter form prevailed after the time of iEschy- 
lus. Hipp. 283. 

33. Eleu is an exclamation employed where the sub'ect under 
discussion is abandoned, and a new topic of conversation started. 
Hipp. 297. 

34. The verbs o75a, yiyvuHTKoo, iiavQavu, ala-OdvofjLai, &c. and their 
compounds, are joined to participles of the present, perfect, and 
future — seldom, and yet sometimes, to those of the aorist : as "ZvvoiSa 
a6(pos &v. tadi duairoTfxos yeyus. See Trach. 741., Soph. Elect. 
1200. Hipp. 304. 



monk's canons. 221 

35. The tragic writers used the double forms, liririos and t-rnreios, 
SouAio? and SouAeios, Ba/c%ios and Bdnxeios, napBevios and irapdiveios. 
Hipp. 307. 1297. 

36. "Epos and yeAos are the iEolic forms of the words "Epoos and 
y€\cos. The former is frequently used by Homer (but only in the 
nominative and accusative cases), and by Euripides five times ; in 
other Attic writers it is doubtful whether epos occurs at all. Hipp. 
337. 

37. Tt irdo-xeis ; is an interrogation used by the Attic writers in 
the sense of the English exclamation, what ails you? Hipp. 340. 

38. The verb ayex^aBai is often joined to a participle, as Movos 
yap, olda, crov kXvwv avi^rai. Pers. 835. See also Med. 38., Aj. 
Fl. 411., Soph. Elect. 1028. and Valck. Phoen. 550. Hipp. 354. 

39. 'AAA' o/jlws are words frequently employed by Euripides at the 
end of an iambic senary, and often ridiculed by Aristophanes. 
Hipp. 358. 

40. The Greeks said vpiu <re Oavew, and irp\v av Bavfjs, but not 
irph 'dv ere 6ave?v. Hipp. 365. (irpli/ av is always preceded by a 
negative.) 

41. In Attic Greek, instead of the dual feminine, the masculine is 
used, especially in articles and participles. See Horn. II. 0. 455. 
Hipp. 389. 

42. The participle cos at the beginning of a sentence preceding an 
optative mood signifies utinam, I wish, or, oh that ! See II. X 107. 
Hipp. 409. 

43. &av\os, [acltcuos, bptyavhs, areppbs, ytvvcuos, dtKaios, fieXeos, fipv- 
X*°S and some other adjectives are declined 6 koI t) QavAos, &c. ; 
and also (pavXos, y, ov. Phil. 437. 

44. The interposition of the words noes SokcIs ; gives additional 
spirit to a narrative. See Hec. 1150., Ran. 53., Eccles. 399. Hipp. 
448. 

45. ^.rzpysiv, in the sense of acquiescing, is frequently found — for 
the most part with an accusative, sometimes with a dative case. 
Hipp. 460. 

46. "Avdpctiiros is used sometimes to denote a woman. See Theocr. 
Adon. 106. and Valckenaer's note. Homo in Latin has the same 
meaning. Hipp. 474. 

47. Examples of (1) the double comparative, such as ^aXXop 
aXyicw, and (2) of the double superlative, such as [xiyicrrov I'x&o-tos, 



222 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

are frequent in the tragic writers. See Hec. 381., Sept. Theb. 679., 
jEsch. Suppl. 287., Med. 1320., Alcest. 802. Hipp. 487. 

48. The forms eKAyaa, K\r}5es y KKydpov, for eKAeura, KAeTSey, K\elQpov t 
are of the more recent Attic, and introduced into the writings of the 
tragedians by grammarians. Hipp. 500. 

49. A short vowel at the end of a preposition, preceding another 
word commencing with the letters <pp, remains short ; but if that 
other word begin with j3\, the short vowel is made long. Hipp. 
513. 

50. The prepositive article, 6, r) t rh, is frequently put for the rela- 
tive, o?, % t>, not only in Homer, but in the writings of the three 
tragedians. Hipp. 527. 

51. ria)\os was said by the Greeks of either a young unmarried 
man or woman. [The same remark applies to aKvfj.uos, /jloo-xos, and 
other names of the young of animals.] Hipp. 547. 

52. The participle of the present tense [as also the present tense 
itself] denotes the attempt to effect the action contained in the verb. 
Hipp. 592. 

53. In solemn adjurations and appeals, such as S> irp6s ae yovarav, 
the pronoun is always placed between the preposition and the noun 
which it governs, and the verb on which the pronoun depends, 
frvTofjiai, iKPovfjiai, i/ccTeJw, or some similar word, is frequently omitted. 
Hipp. 603. 

54. ra/uLppos seems to denote any relation by marriage ; but in the 
tragic writers it generally signifies a son-in-law. Hipp. 631. 

55. When the Greeks wished to express any thing future, on 
which something else was contingent, then they prefixed the con- 
junctions 'Iva, ws, o(ppa, &c. to the imperfect, aorist, or preterplu- 
perfect tenses of the indicative mood, just as the case required. 
This construction must be carefully distinguished from the usage of 
ojs, :Va, &c. with the subjunctive and optative moods. They could 
saj 7 XPV Trp6airo\oi> ob irepqv — %v ex^o - * . . . i. e. that they may be 
able . . . They could say, ovic eloov irpSaitoXov irepav, — 'iv e%o^v 
... i.e. that they might be able . . . But it is a very different 
thing to say, XP^ irpfoiroKovol irepav — 'tv elxou ... in which case 
they would be able ... See (E. R. 1386. 1391., R V. 158. 774., 
Choeph. 193., Iph. T. 354., Pax. 135., Eccles. 151. Hipp. 643. 

56. y Es Te, signifying as long as, is construed with an indicative, 
h re av with a subjunctive mood. Hipp. 655. 



monk's canons. 223 

57. E* and av nowhere occur in the same member of a sentence, 
much less when joined to the indicative mood. Hipp 679. 

58. rioAAa irpdacretp is said of one who meddles with things not 
concerning him. There is a similar signification in the words 
iroXvirpdy/jLow, tt oXvirp ay fjLOVtiv, iroXvirpay/JLO(rvi/r] — 7T€pt(raa Trpdcrceiv. 
Hipp. 785. 

59. ®€copol were persons who went to consult the oracles of the 
gods on any private or public affairs. Hipp. 792. 

60. Ult94cos yrjpas is a periphrastic expression for " the aged 
Pittheus." In designating persons, the tragic writers [and poets 
generally] frequently employ circumlocutions, and those chiefly 
which expressed some dignity or excellence, moral or personal. 
Hipp. 794. 

61. Those who received favourable responses from the oracle at 
Delphi, used to return home crowned with laurel. See (Ed. R. 82. 
Hipp. 806. 

62. MdiuGTos is used by the poets for fteyiaros, as /xdao-cou is for 
fjLet&v. Hipp. 820., comp. Blomfield on Prom. Vinct. 1, 

63. — fle'Aet ri a-qixrivai viov; this euphemism, in which Kanhv is 
understood, is very frequent in the tragic writers. Hipp. 860. 

64. ^aivsiv is said of dogs, who wag their tails when they fawn 
on men. Hence aaiveiv and npovcraiveiv signify to fawn on, to please, 
to flatter. Hipp. 866. 

65. Upbs in the sense of besides, with rovrois understood, occurs 
frequently, as well in the tragic as in other writers. See Heracl. 
642., Phoen. 619. 890., Pr. V. 73., Helen. 965. Hipp. 875. 

66. 'AvrXeco and i^avrX4co are properly said of exhausting by 
means of an dvrXos or pump ; and metaphorically, of completing 
life. In the same sense the Latins used the derivative exanilare. 
Hipp. 902. 

67. Notre?*/ in the tragic writers, is frequently said of those who 
labour under any evil, misfortune, or danger, [and may be rendered, 
" to be distressed."] Hipp. 937. 

68. KainiAevoo denotes, to be an innkeeper ; and thence, to derive 
gain by fraudulent means. See Dr. Blomf. Sept. Theb. 551. 
Hipp. 956, 7. 

69. Ta (piXrara is frequently used by Euripides to designate a 
parent, a husband, a wife, or children ; and in general may be trans- 
lated, the dearest objects or connexions. Hipp. 969. 



22-1 IIAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

70. The Attics form the crasis of 6 avrbs, 6 avfy, 6 tf^af, 6 ctywp, 
6 ayaObs, d ercpos, by avrbs, aV?;p, aVa£, a'7a>y, &C. Hipp. 1005. 

71. "AOiktos has both (1) an active and (2) a passive signification: 

(1) Not touching. See (E. C. 1521. (so also tyavaros, (E. R. 968.) 

(2) Not to be touched; hallowed. See Iph. T. 790., Agam. 380. 
The same remark will apply to &K\av(rros t aarevanros. Hipp. 1006. 

72. OIksiv oIkov or Ufxov in the tragic writers signifies, to be the 
master of a house or family. Hipp. 1014. 

73. Xaipcov is said of one who is exempt from punishment, and 
may be rendered, with impunity. KAdwv is opposed to it, and may, 
in the second person, be rendered, to your cost. See (E. R. 363., 
Antig. 759., Med. 399., Androm. 756. Hipp. 1089. 

74. The Attics used the Doric form &pape, not &prips : as also, 
besides the instances given by Porson, Orest. 26. (see Class. Journ, 
No. lxi. p. 137.) they said datcos, and its compounds ; ydirovos, 
yaTT€TT}s, ydiredov, yd/nupos, ydiroros, ydrofios, Kapavov and its com- 
pounds. Hipp. 1093. 

75. The futures (pev^o/aai and (pev^odfiai were both used by the 
tragic writers. Hipp, 1096. 

76. The ellipsis of the preposition ow is very common with the 
Greek writers, and especially when the dative of the pronoun avrbs 
is added. See II. 0. 24., A. 698., T. 481. Hipp. 1184. 

77. The TEolic and Doric form %Kpv<pBtv for iKpvcpOrjaav is very 
rarely used by the tragic writers. Hipp. 1242. 

78. Xpeoov in the sense of fate or necessity is indeclinable, and 
always requires the article in Euripides. Hipp. 1251. 

79. The crasis in the words f) «5eW and fify eldevai are not un- 
common in the tragic writers; as also those in rj ou, fir) ov; the 
erases w avrbs, Iph. T. 1010., t) olxdneatf, Soph. Trach. 84., t) eu-ye- 
veiav, Eur. Electr. 1104., are more unusual. Hipp. 1331. 

80. Xaipoo sometimes takes after it an accusative of the thing for 
which the rejoicing takes place. Hipp. 1335. The figure is called 
an Oropism : the sense passes on mentally. 

81. The Greeks frequently use the aorist in a sense little differing 
from the present, as el-nov, Med. 274., u7re?7roy, Eur. Suppl. 1170., 
Kar&Kreipa, Iph. A. 496. $V w l a > Med. 787., air47rrvo-a, Hipp. 610. 
Hipp. 1403. 

82. The present tenses, diyydveiv. epvyydveiv, (pvyyaveiv, Kiyxd- 
veiVy Xayxdi'eiv, rvyxdvziv, Sdicvetv (contracted from dayicdveiv\ Aa^u- 



__ 



monk's canons. 225 

fZdveiv, [xavOdveiv, irwddueaOat. are derived from the aorists Oiyziv, 
ipvyttv, 4>vy€?Uj Kixeiv, ^a-X^i rvxjeiv, §a.Keiv y AajSetV, fxaOeiv, nvde- 
adaL, by the insertion of the letters v or /x. To these may he added 
auddueiu from adelv. Hipp. ] 442. 

83. Kat never forms a crasis with, nor suffers elision before, ^77. 
Hipp. 1445. 

84. The Greeks had four forms of the future with a passive sig- 
nification : (1) ri(xr](ToiJLai, (2) fiefiArjorofAaL, (3) fiA7}6 77 a o fx a 1, (4) 
aTcaWay 77 a* ojx at. The 4th form is not very frequent among the 
tragic writers. To the 1st form the Attics seem to have been 
partial : the following occur in the Greek tragedians : Ae£o,uc«, Ti/x-fi* 
aofxcu, GTcpyaoixai, Krjpvl-oijLcu, aXooffonai, idcrofjuxi, /jao-f](TOjuaL, crrvyi]' 
cro/xai, SrjAaxToiuLaL, fiovAevao/jLai, ivegopai, &pl;Ofxai, didd^ofxai, iirLTd^o/xai, 
&c. Hipp. 1458. 

85. ov §?> x ^^ 06 ^] Here evc-Ka is understood. The cause of 
hatred is expressed by a genitive case without a preposition. 
See Orest. 741., Here. F. 528. 1114. ; II. A. 429., n. 320., $. 457. 
Alcest. 5. 

86. An accusative case is frequently placed in apposition with the 
meaning implied in the preceding sentence, as Orest. 1103. : 'EAtvrjv 
Krdvwfxzv, Meve\€ca Avttyjv irittpdv. See Phoen. 351., Androm. 291., 
Here. F. 59. 355. 427. Alcest. 7. 

87. The preposition after verbs of motion to is frequently omitted. 
Alcest. 8. 

88. After verbs of rescuing, prohibiting, and denying, the nega- 
tive jU7?, though generally expressed, is sometimes omitted; as %v 
Qavuv £ppvcrdiAT]v, Alcest. 11. 

89. The plural Tifial is used in the sense of attributes, preroga- 
tives. Alcest. 30. 

90. The ancient Greek writers never joined the particle av to 
the indicative mood of either the present or perfect. Alcest. 48. 

91. 'Upbs 9 in the sense of consecrated or sacred to, requires a 
genitive case. Alcest. 75. 

92. In anapaestic verse the penult of jxiXaBpov is always short. 
Alcest. 77. 

93. The interrogative iroQeu has the force of a negative. Alcest 
95. 

94. In sentences where two nouns joined by a copulative are 

Q 



226 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

governed by the same preposition, the preposition is frequently 
found with the latter noun ; — 

MeAAcoy 5e Tre/xiveiv fi OlSlnov KXtivbs y6uos 
Mavrela ae/jiva, Ao£iov r eV ecr^a/ras. — 

Phoen. 290. See also Heracl. 755., (E. R. 736. 761., Soph. Electr. 
780., Sept. Theb 1034. 

95. The plural forms Koipavoi, &va.KT€s, /3amAe?s, rvpavvoi, in the 
tragic writers, frequently express only one king, or the retinue of 
one king. Alcest. 132. 

96. There are many active verbs which have their futures of the 
middle, and nowhere of the active form, at least among the Attic 
writers: thus, olkovoo, (nyco, aicorrco, a5w, /3oa>, h^mp-ravo), 6vt}(Tkco } irtirrcoj 
kAolgo, 7rAea>, 7iWa>, have the futures aKovaofiai, atyqaofiai, criwhvoixai, 
qaropai, jSo^o/^at, auapr^do^a^ Qavovixai, ircaov/xai, Kkavao{xai t 7rAeu- 
oofxeu, TrvevcrofjLcu. Alcest. 158. 

97. Ou never forms a crasis with ovirore so as to make oviroTe. 
Alcest. 199. 

98. In the choral odes the sigma is sometimes doubled ; as, Med. 
832, a(pvaaajx€vav 1 Eur. Suppl. 58. 'dcraov, Pers. 559. /3a/0i'5eo-<n, 
(E. R. 1100. bpeaaifi&Ta. Trach. 636. jueWat/, Aj. Fl. 185. tovvov, 
390. oAeVcras, Philoct. 1163. 7reAaa-aw. Sophocles uses the form 
/jLeaaos twice in the iambic senary, viz., Antig. 1223. 1236. Alcest. 
234. 

99. It is very doubtful whether the Attic writers ever used pe£» 
in the present tense. Alcest. 272. 

100. ToAjua*/ and the aorist tAt)*/cu signify, to endure, in spite of 
(1) danger, i. e. to have courage ; (2) shame, i. e. to have the im- 
pudence ; (3) pride, i. e. to deign, condescend, submit ; (4) pain of 
mind, i. e. to prevail on oneself; (5) pity , i.e. to have the cruelty. 
Alcest. 285. The uses of posse are similar in Latin. 

101. "05e ai/7]p, for £yw, is a well-known formula. The feminine 
form v?5e and f/8e ywri, for iyw, occurs also in Agam. 1447. and 
Trach. 305. Alcest. 341. 

102. The tragic writers were partial to the use of vsoaaol for 
children. See Androm. 442., Iph. A. 1248. Heracl. 240., Here. F. 
224. 989. Alcest. 414. 

103. Kitsi-nziv with an accusative signifies to renounce; with a 
dative, to fail or faint. Alcest. 503. 



monk's canons. 227 

104. With verbs of motion, the Greeks joined a future participle 
denoting the object. Alcest. 520. 

105. The tragic writers allowed the omission of the augment in 
the choral odes. Alcest. 599. 

106. Al6r]p is found both in the masculine and feminine gender. 
Alcest. 610. 

107. The penult of (pOivw and (p6dvo> is long in Homer, but always 
short in the Attic writers. Alcest. 638. 

108. The tragic writers were partial to compounds, such as 
aldotypoov, aXKL<ppcDV, cnB^pScppoov, &c. Alcest. 678. 

109. 0ebs is frequently said of the sun, and generally without the 
article. See Orest. 1023., Eur. Suppl. 208., Med. 353. Alcest. 738. 

110. The chorus very rarely quits the stage after its first en- 
trance till the conclusion of the tragedy. A few instances, how- 
ever, occur where it does : Alcest. 762., Aj. Fl. 814. and Eumen. 
Alcest. 762. 

111. The form olfias, for the common olcrda, is not very frequent 
Alcest. 796. 

112. \AAAa orov to fxr] (ppdaaL. This construction is expressive of 
indignation or admiration. See Nub. 818., Aves. 5., Kan. 741. 
Alcest. 848. 

113. The following are instances of verbs transitive governing a 
genitive case, /mtpos n being understood: Ale. 861., Hec. 614., Herod, 
iii. 11. Alcest. 861. 

114. Toov virb yaias, not ycuau: the accusative in such expressions 
is then only used, when motion is denoted. Alcest. 921. 

115. Several active verbs are used in a middle sense, the personal 
pronoun being understood; as pityai y Cycl. 165.; Kpuirropra, Phoen. 
1133. ; KpvTTTOvo-iv, Soph. El. 826. ; 7raAAa^, <E. R. 153.; /career;^, 
<E. E. 782. Alcest. 922. 

116. The Greeks said vlkSv ftdxyv, vacav ay&va, vinav ae6\ou. 
Alcest. 1048. Cognate accusative. 

117. Ei yap frequently occur in an optative signification ; but in 
this usage there is a difference between the indicative and optative 
moods. El yap dxov means, oh that I bad ! el yap exoi^i, oh that I 
may have ! Alcest. 1091. 

118. The quantity of the enclitic vw is sometimes long and 
sometimes short both in the tragic and comic writers. Alcest 
1096. 

Q 2 



228 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

119. The ancients were accustomed to attribute heavy reverses 
of fortune to the envy of the gods. See Pers. 367., Orest. 963., Eur. 
Suppl. 347., Iph. A. 1049., Herod, iii. 40. Alcest. 1154. 



IV. 

OX THE SITE AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE 
DIONTSIAC THEATRE AT ATHENS. 

By T. CAMPBELL. 



From the " New Monthly Magazine and Classical Journal," 

No. 65. 



It is now generally admitted, that the grand or Dionysiac theatre 
of Athens stood on the south-eastern angle of the hill of the Acro- 
polis ; and that Stuart was mistaken when he thought he had dis- 
covered its ruins in those which are now judged to have belonged to 
the Odeion of Herodes. That the former place was the site of the 
Dionysiac theatre, is strongly attested by the choragic monuments 
still existing in that quarter ; and a statue of Bacchus, which once 
adorned a small temple in the vicinity of the theatre, is now placed 
in the British Museum. The hollow in the slope of the hill still in- 
dicates a place where the seats of the spectators must have been 
excavated. It was the custom of the Greeks to build their theatres 
on the side of a hill, not, as a refined speculator has imagined, for 
the purpose of commanding a view of fine rural scenery, since the 
height of the stage wall must have shut out the prospect beyond it 
from one half of the spectators, but for saving the subconstruction 
of seats, as the ground thus facilitated their being raised in ascending 
semicircles. Though the seats, however, rose on a hollow slope, it 
is impossible to imagine the orchestra, the dromos, and the stage, 
with its flanking walls, to have been situated anywhere but on even 
ground at the bottom. If we may believe Plato, the Dionysiac 



THEATRE OF DIONYSUS. 229 

theatre could contain thirty thousand spectators, so that its diameter 
could not have been much less than four hundred and fifty feet. It 
is unnecessary to say, that, with such dimensions, it was uncovered 
above ; nor had the Greeks recourse, like the Romans, to temporary 
awnings. When showers came on, they had a double portico 
behind the scenes, to which they could retire. That Eumenic por- 
tico, as it was called, had an open walk in the midst of it, em- 
bellished with trees or shrubbery, and was the rehearsal-ground of 
the chorus. The day-light and open-air, instead of our covered and 
candle-light, system of acting, were indispensable for exhibitions 
intended to animate a whole people. 

As only the scantiest vestiges of that mighty theatre remain, the 
moderns have been obliged to compile their conceptions of it chiefly 
from Vitruvius and Julius Pollux, and from the traces of other old 
theatres which are supposed to have been built on the same model. 
Among the works on this subject, I am not aware that Mr. Genelli's 
has been surpassed by any other in elaborate research or in know- 
ledge of architecture. I quote his name, however, wishing only to 
refer generally to his authority, and not intending to descend mi- 
nutely into his architectural disquisitions. 

In sketching my conception of the Greek theatre, I shall begin 
with its highest ground, or that which was farthest from the stage. 
The entire outline of the building, as it lay on the hollow of a hill, 
and on a portion of the plain ground below, must have been that of 
a semicircle with its arch upwards, joined to a pretty broad paral- 
lelogram at its basis. Between the apex of the semicircle and the 
rocks of the Acropolis above it, it is scarcely conceivable but that 
some communication was opened : yet it must have been very nar- 
row, in order to prevent the escape of sound from below. The main 
entrances to the theatre were at the opposite ends of the parallelo- 
gram below the spectators' semicircle, or at the right and left ex- 
tremities of the Dromos, or course, which ran in front of the stage 
and its flanking walls. The spectators' or upper part of the theatre 
was inclosed by a massive semicircular wall, and a portico within it, 
which served as a station for the servants attending their masters to 
the play, and also as another lounging -place for the spectators, in- 
dependent of the garden portico behind the stage buildings, which 
has been already mentioned. Inside of that wall and portico the 
benches descended (for we suppose ourselves looking down on the 

Q 3 



230 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

stage) in concentric semicircles, which diminished as they approached 
and embraced the protruding crescent of the orchestra. The cur- 
vature of the seat-rows thus inclined the faces of all the spectators 
towards the centre of the hnilding, so that the terminating seats on 
the right and left were duly opposite to each other, like those of 
our boxes nearest the stage. The entire amphitheatre of seats was 
divided into belts or stripes by passages sweeping round them in 
profile, and again into wedge-like masses by flights of steps that 
radiated upwards from the lowest to the highest benches. Twelve 
feet lower than the lowest benches, yet still projecting into their 
convexity, came the crescent of the flat orchestra, which was never 
occupied by any spectators. In the middle of the basis-line of that 
orchestral crescent was the Thymele, a slight square elevation with 
steps, and a platform, which was the rallying point of the chorus. 
Around this thymele the dances of the chorus described a small 
circle, the one half of which was within the orchestral crescent 
towards the spectators, the other behind the thymele, and stretching 
nearly to the front stage. A part of the orchestra-ground therefore 
entered into the dromos. After inclosing the spectators and the in- 
terior orchestral crescent in one vast semicircle, the walls of the 
theatre ceased to describe a curve, and ran on straight to join the 
right and left extremities of the Paraskenia, or flanking buildings of 
the stage ; of course they thus formed the two ends of the dromos, 
and the continuity of their masonry was interrupted only by the two 
grand and opposite entrances to the theatre. Those entrances, it is 
clear from Vitruvius, were covered above. The stage-ground, with 
its flanks, or paraskenia, formed a line as broad as the amphitheatre 
of spectators ; but the stage itself was a trifle narrower than the or- 
chestra, to which it was duly opposite. The level of the stage was 
the same as that of the lowest benches, consequently as many feet 
higher than the orchestra ; but the whole wall of the stage-ground 
rose to the same height as the wall on the outside of the highest 
benches. To return to the stage — it was connected with the or- 
chestra by stairs ; for though the choral and stage-performers had 
a generally distinct locality, it is evident that there was a connexion 
in acting between the orchestra and the stage. The stage itself was 
twofold. One stage, called the Logeion, projected beyond the para- 
skenia, and, being meant merely for declamation, was constructed 
of wood, the better to reverberate the voice. Behind it, there was a 



THEATRE OP DIONYSUS. 231 

chasm for holding the roll of the curtain ; for that disguise, though 
it was seldom used, was drawn upwards by the Greeks, and not 
downwards, as by us. Immediately behind the Logeion lay the 
Proskenion, or proper stage, which, having often heavy plastic 
scenery to support, was made of stone. From the building behind 
there were three entrances to the stage ; and the rank of the charac- 
ters was marked by the door from which they entered, the central 
and most superb one being allotted to royalty. A hall in the first 
floor of the stage-house contained the actors, whilst they stood ready 
to enter on their parts ; and their dressing-rooms lay at its extremi- 
ties. The back of the stage, as has been just mentioned, was not a 
mere wall, but a house of considerable height ; and in like manner 
its flanks were buildings of several stories, in the apartments of 
which, nearest to the stage, were kept the machines for moving its 
scenery. But, as the building behind was insufficient of itself to 
indicate the locality of the piece, there was a line of decorations in 
front of it, which properly constituted the scene. Those decorations 
were either plastic imitations of objects, chiefly in wood, or paintings 
on canvass and boards. The under decorations were plastic, the 
upper were flat pictures. The scenery, both on the sides and in 
the middle, was shifted by machines, which are minutely discussed 
by Genelli, but which it would be foreign to my purpose to describe. 
In general, the Greek plays themselves show that there could not 
have been many changes of scene, and that the curtain was seldom 
necessary. But from the known fact, that the Greeks understood 
perspective, and from their anxiety to impress the senses, we may 
believe that the scenic effect of their stage was highly imposing. If 
Genelli be right, they spared not even the introduction of natural 
trees to adorn the landscape of (Edipus Coloneus. 

Almost every device which is known to the modern stage was 
practised by the Greeks ; and the dimensions, at least, of their 
theatres were favorable to illusion. Their Theologeion, or place 
of the conference of the gods, must have been an occasional scaffold 
issuing from near the top of the stage-building, and surrounded with 
a picture of clouds. Infernal spirits and phantoms ascended from 
the Charonic steps at the extremity of the orchestra farthest from 
the stage, and beneath the lowest seats of the spectators. By our 
sceptical imaginations, the impressions made on a superstitious people 
by such representations can be but faintly estimated ; yet even a 

Q 4 



2i2 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

modern fancy must be torpid, that, in reading iEschylus, is not 
electrified by the ghost of Olytivmnestra rushing in to awaken the 
Eumenides ; and the grandeur of terror in spectral agency was cer- 
tainly never made more perfect than where that poet invokes " the 
slumbering Furies and the sleepless dead." 

The audience themselves must have formed no unimposing ap- 
pearance. Of the place for myriads, the foremost belonged to the 
arehons, the senate, the generals, and the high -priesthood of the 
state. Strangers were admitted during one of the festivals, and had 
their allotted seats. The knights had their station apart ; and all 
the free citizens arranged themselves according to their tribes. The 
place for the youth was ealled the Ephebicon ; and the women had 
distinct seats, though opinion, more than law, seems to have kept 
the more respectable class of them from the theatre. 



ON THE CHOBUS. 

From " Francklin's Preface to Sophocles." 



We come now to an essential* part of the ancient tragedy peculiar 
to itself : whilst every other member of the building is universally 
admired, and industriously copied by modern architects, this alone 
hath been rejected and contemned as ungraceful and unnecessary. 
The chorus gave the first hint to the formation of tragedy, and was, 
as it were, the corner-stone of the whole edifice : as a religious 
ceremony, it was considered by the multitude with a kind of su- 
perstitious veneration ; it is not therefore improbable that the first 
authors of the regular drama willingly gave way to popular pre- 
judices, and for this, among many other reasons, incorporated it 



* Aristotle ranks the chorus amongst what he calls parts of 
quantity, and places it after the exode. 



THE TRAGIC CHORUS. 233 

into the body of the tragedy : accordingly, we find the chorus of 
iEschylus resuming its original office, reciting the praises of the 
local deities, demi-gods, and heroes, taking the part of distressed 
virtue, and abounding throughout in all those moral precepts, and 
religious sentiments, by which the writings of the ancients are so 
eminently and so honorably distinguished. 

Various are the arguments that have from time to time been 
produced by the zealous partisans of antiquity, in favour of the tragic 
chorus, the principal of which I shall briefly recapitulate and lay 
before my readers, begging leave, at the same time, to premise that, 
whether a chorus is defensible with regard to the ancient theatre, 
and whether it should be adopted by the modern, are two very dif- 
ferent questions, though generally blended and confused by writers 
on this subject ; the former may perhaps be easily .proved, though 
the latter be left totally undetermined. The ancients thought it 
highly improbable that any great, interesting, and important action 
should be performed without witnesses ; their choruses were there- 
fore composed of such* persons as most naturally might be supposed 
present on the occasion; persons f whose situation might so far 
interest them in the events of the fable, as to render their presence 
useful and necessary ; and yet not so deeply concerned as to make 
them incapable of performing that office to which they were more 
particularly appointed, the giving proper advice, and making proper 
reflections on every thing that occurred, in the course of the drama ; 



* " A chorus, interposing and bearing a part in the progress of the 
action, gives the representation that probability and striking resem- 
blance of real life, which every man of sense perceives and feels the 
want of on our stage ; a want which nothing but such an expedient 
as the chorus can possibly relieve." 

This is the remark of one of the most ingenious and judicious 
critics which our own age, or perhaps any other, ever produced : 
the reader will find it, with many others equally just, p. 118. of the 
first volume of a commentary and notes on Horace's Art of Poetry, 
and Epistle to Augustus. 

f Thus in the Ajax of Sophocles the chorus is composed of the 
men of Salamis, his countrymen and companions ; in the Electra, of 
the principal ladies of Mycenae, her friends and attendants ; in the 
Philoctetes, of the companions of Ulysses and Neoptolemus, the only 
persons who could with any propriety be introduced. The rest of 
this writer's plays, and his only, will stand the test of examination 
by the rule here mentioned. 



234 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

for this purpose, a coryphaeus, or leader, superintended and directed 
all the rest, spoke for the whole body in the dialogue part, and led 
the songs and dances in the intermede. By the introduction of a 
chorus, which bore a part in the action, the ancients avoided the 
absurdity of monologues and soliloquies ; an error which the 
moderns have imperceptibly and necessarily fallen into from their 
omission of it ; they avoided also that miserable resource of dis- 
tressed poets, the insipid and uninteresting race of confidants (a 
refinement for which we are indebted to the French theatre), who 
only appear to ask a foolish question, listen to the secrets of their 
superiors, and laugh or cry as they are commanded. 

But the great use and advantage of the chorus will best appear 
when w r e come to consider it in its moral capacity. In that illus- 
trious period which may be called the golden age of tragedy, the 
stage was not only the principal, but almost the only vehicle of in- 
struction. Philosophy applied to the liberal arts for their influence 
and assistance ; she appeared in the theatre even before she dictated 
in the academy; and Socrates is supposed to have delivered many of 
his excellent precepts by the mouth of his favourite* poet : this 
sufficiently accounts for the sententious and didactic part of the 
ancient drama, for all that profusion of moral and religious senti- 
ments which tires the patience and disgusts the delicacy of modern 
readers : the critics of those times were of opinion (however they 
may differ from our own in this particular) that the first and prin- 
cipal characters of the piece were too deeply interested in their own 
concerns, and too busy in the prosecution of their several designs 
and purposes, to be at leisure to make moral or political reflections : 
such, therefore, they very judiciously, for the most part, put into the 
mouth of the chorus ; this, at the same timef, prevented the illite- 

* Hence Euripides was called 6 M rrjs o-k^vtis (j>i\6(ro(pos, " the 
philosopher of the theatre," " in iis," says Quintilian, " qua? a sapi- 
entibus tradita sunt, ipsis pame par." With regard to Socrates, his 
friendship with this poet is universally known ; iSSnei av/jLiroieTu Ev- 
PittIBt], says Diogenes Laertius. The comic poets of that time did 
not scruple to ascribe several of Euripides's plays to Socrates, as 
they afterwards did those of Terence to Laelius and Scipio. 

f Euripides being obliged to put some bold and impious senti- 
ments into the mouth of a wicked character, the audience were 
angry with the poet, and looked on him as the real villain whom his 
actor represented : the story is told by Seneca. " Now if such an 



THE TRAGIC CHORUS. 235 

rate and uu distinguishing part of the audience from mistaking the 
characters, or drawing hasty and false conclusions from the incidents 
and circumstances of the drama ; the poet by these means leading 
them as it were insensibly into such sentiments and affections as he 
had intended to excite, and a conviction of those moral and religious 
truths which he meant to inculcate. 

But the chorus had likewise another office *, which was to relieve 
the spectator, during the pauses and intervals of the action, by an 
ode or song adapted to the occasion, naturally arising from the in- 
cidents f, and connected with the subject of the drama: here the 
author generally gave a loose to his imagination, displayed his 
poetical abilities, and sometimes, perhaps too often, wandered from 
the scene of action into the regions of fancy : the audience notwith- 
standing were pleased with this short relaxation and agreeable 
variety ; soothed by the power of numbers, and the excellency of 
the composition, they easily forgave the writer, and returned as it 
were with double attention to his prosecution of the main subject : 



audience," says the ingenious writer, whom I quoted above, " could 
so easily misinterpret an attention to the truth of character into the 
real doctrine of the poet, and this too when a chorus was at hand to 
correct and disabuse their judgments, what must be the case when 
the whole is left to the sagacity and penetration of the people ? " 

* The office of the chorus is divided by Aristotle into three parts, 
which he calls irdpohos, a-rdo-i/nov, and Ko/nfioi : the parados is the first 
song of the chorus ; the stasimon is all that which the chorus sings 
after it has taken possession of the stage and is incorporated into the 
action ; and the commoi are those lamentations so frequent in the 
Greek writers, which the chorus and the actors made together. See 
the second scene of the second act of Ajax, in my translation ; Phi- 
loctetes, act first, scene third ; the beginning of the (Edipus Coloneus, 
together with many other parts of Sophocles's tragedies, where the 
commoi are easily distinguishable from the regular songs of the 
chorus. 

f Neu quid medios intercinat actus 

Quod non proposito conducat et hasreat apte. 

Hor. A. P. 194. 

This connexion with the subject of the drama, so essentially ne- 
cessary to a good chorus, is not always to be found in the tragedies 
of JEschylus and Euripides, ihe latter of which is greatly blamed by- 
Aristotle for his carelessness in this important particular ; the correct 
Sophocles alone hath strictly observed it. 



236 IIAND-IKX)K OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

to tli is part of the ancient chorus we are indebted for some of the 
noblest flights of poetry, as well as the finest sentiments that adorn 
the writings of the Greek tragedians. The number of persons com- 
posing the chorus was probably at first indeterminate, varying 
according to the circumstances and plot of the drama. JEschylus, 
we are told, brought no less than fifty into his Eumenides, but was 
obliged to reduce them to twelve* ; Sophocles was afterwards per- 
mitted to add three ; a limitation which we have reason to imagine 
became a rule to succeeding poets. 

When the chorus consisted of fifteen, the persons composing it 
ranged themselves in three rows of five each, or five rows of three, 
and in this order advanced or retreated from the right hand to the 
left, which is called strophe f, and then back from the left to the 
right, which we call antistrophe ; after which they stood still in the 
midst of the stage, and sung the epode. Some writers attribute the 
original of these evolutions to a mysterious imitation of the motion 
of the heavens, stars, and planets ; but the conjecture seems rather 
whimsical. The dance, we may imagine (if so we may venture to 
call it), was slow and solemn, or quick and lively, according to the 
words, sentiments, and occasion ; and, in so spacious a theatre as 
that of Athens, might admit of such grace and variety in its motions 
as would render it extremely agreeable to the spectators : the petu- 
lancy of modern criticism has frequently made bold to ridicule the 
use of song and dance in ancient tragedy, not considering (as 
Brumoy observes) that dancing is, in reality, only a more graceful 
way of moving, and music but a more agreeable manner of expres- 
sion ; nor, indeed, can any good reason be assigned why they should 
not be admitted, if properly introduced and carefully managed, into 
the most serious compositions. 

The chorus continued on the stage during the whole representa- 



* The number of the chorus in the Eumenides was only fifteen : 
see Miiller on the origin of this error in his Dissertation prefixed to 
that play, p. 53. 

f It does not appear that the old tragedians confined themselves 
to any strict rules with regard to the division of strophe, antistrophe, 
and epode, as we find the choral songs consisting sometimes of a 
strophe only, sometimes of strophe and antistrophe, without the 
epode : the observing reader w r ill find many other irregularities of 
this kind in a perusal of the Greek tragedies. 



THE TRAGIC CHORUS. 237 

tion of the piece, unless when some very extraordinary* circum- 
stance required their absence : this obliged the poet to a continuity 
of action, as the chorus could not have any excuse for remaining on 
the spot when the affair which called them together was at an end : 
it preserved also the unity of time ; for if the poet, as Hedelin f ob- 
serves, had comprehended in his play a week, a month, or a year, 
how could the spectators be made to believe that the people, who 
were before them, could have passed so long a time without eating, 
drinking, or sleeping ? Thus we find that the chorus preserved all 
the unities of action, time, and place ; that it prepared the incidents, 
and inculcated the moral of the piece ; relieved and amused the 
spectators, presided over and directed the music, made a part of the 
decoration, and, in short, pervaded and animated the whole ; it ren- 
dered the poem more regular, more probable, more pathetic, more 
noble and magnificent ; it was indeed the great chain which held 
together and strengthened the several parts of the drama, which 
without it could only have exhibited a lifeless and uninteresting 
scene of irregularity, darkness, and confusion. 

* As in the Ajax of Sophocles, where the chorus leave the stage 
in search of that hero, and by that means give him an opportunity 
of killing himself in the very spot which they had quitted, and which 
could not have been done with any propriety whilst they were 
present, and able to prevent it : on these occasions the chorus fre- 
quently divided itself into two parts, or semichoruses, and sang 
alternately. 

| See his "Whole Art of the Stage," page 129. of the English 
translation. 



238 IIAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 



VI. 

ARISTOPHANES ; 

HIS HISTORY, CHARACTER, AND WORKS. 

From " Cumberland's Observer," No. 138. 



Ut tempi am Charites, quod non labatur, haberent, 
Invenere tuum pectus, Aristophanes. 

J. Scaxiger. 

This is a eulogy the more honorable to Aristophanes, as it fell 
from Plato, the disciple of Socrates. If I were to collect all the 
testimonies that are scattered through the works of the learned in 
behalf of the author we are now about to review, I should fill my 
pages with panegyric ; but this I am the less concerned to do, as 
the reader has a part of him in possession, which, as it is near a 
fourth of the whole man, he has more than the foot by which to 
measure this Hercules. 

Both the parentage and birth-place of Aristophanes are doubt- 
ful : he was an adopted, not a natural citizen of Athens, and I in- 
cline to think he was the son of Philippus, a native of iEgina, where 
our poet had some patrimony. He was in person very tall, bony, 
and robust ; and we have his own authority for his baldness ; but 
whether this was as disgraceful at Athens, as it was amongst the 
Romans, I have not been anxious to inquire. He was, in private 
life, of a free, open, and companionable temper ; and his company 
was sought after by the greatest characters of the age, with all pos- 
sible avidity : Plato, and even Socrates, shared many social hours 
with him : he was much the most popular character in Athens, as 
the great demagogue Cleon experienced to his cost, not to mention 
Socrates himself : every honor that could be paid to a poet was 
publicly bestowed on Aristophanes by the Athenian people ; nor 
did they confine their rewards to honorary prizes only, but decreed 
him fines and pecuniary confiscations from those who ventured to 



ARISTOPHANES. 239 

attack him with suits and prosecutions : Dionysius of Syracuse in 
vain made overtures to him of the most flattering sort, at the time 
"when iEschines and Aristippus, Socratic philosophers, were retained 
in his court, when even Plato himself had solicited his notice by 
three several visits to Syracuse, where he had not the good fortune 
to render himself very agreeable. The fame of Aristophanes had 
reached to the court of Persia ; and his praises were there sounded 
by the great king himself, who considered him not only as the first 
poet, but as the most conspicuous personage at Athens. I do not 
find him marked with any other immorality than that of intempe- 
rance with regard to wine, the fashionable excess of the time and in 
some degree a kind of prerogative of his profession, a licentia 
poetica : Athenseus the Deipnosophist says he was drunk when he 
composed ; but this is a charge that will not pass upon any man who 
is sober, and if we rejected it from Sophocles in the case of iEschy- 
lus, we shall not receive it but with contempt from such an accuser 
as Athenaeus. He was not happy in his domestic connexions. He 
was blessed with a good constitution, and lived to turn above 
seventy years, though the date of his death is not precisely laid 
down. 

Though he was resolute in opposing himself to the torrent of 
vice and corruption which overspread the manners of his country, 
yet he was far more temperate in his personal invective than his 
contemporaries. He was too sensitive in his nature to undertake 
the performance of his own parts in person, which was general with 
all the comic poets of his time ; and he stood their raillery for not 
venturing to tread the stage as they did. Amipsias and Aristony- 
mus, both rival authors, charged him with availing himself of the 
talents of other people, from consciousness of his own insufficiency. 
Their raillery could not draw him out, till his favorite actor Calli- 
stratus declined undertaking the part of Cleon, in his personal comedy 
of The Knights, dreading the resentment of that powerful dema- 
gogue, who was as unforgiving as he was imperious : in this 
dilemma Aristophanes conquered his repugnance, and determined 
upon presenting himself on the stage for the first time in his life. 
He dressed himself in the character oi this formidable tribune ; and 
having coloured his face with vermilion up to the hue of the brutal 
person he was to resemble, he entered on the part in such a style of 
energy and with such natural expression, that the effect was irre- 



240 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

sistible ; and the proud factious Oleon was stripped of his popularity, 
and sentenced in a fine of five talents by the knight's decree, as 
damages for the charge he had preferred against the author, touch- 
ing his right of citizenship, which was awarded and secured to him 
by the same instrument. 

Such was Aristophanes in person, manners, and character : as 
a poet I might refer the learned reader to his works, which speak 
so ably for themselves : they are not only valuable as his remains ; 
but when we consider them as the only remains which give us any 
complete specimens of the Greek comedy, they become inestimable 
through the misfortunes of all the rest. We receive them as trea- 
sures thrown up from a wreck, or more properly as one passenger 
escaped out of a fleet, whose narrative we listen to with the more 
eagerness and curiosity, because it is from this alone we can gain 
intelligence of the nature of the expedition, the quality of the arma- 
ment, and the characters and talents of the commanders, who have 
perished and gone down into the abyss together. 

The comedies of Aristophanes are universally esteemed to be 
the standard of Attic writing in its greatest purity : if any man 
would wish to know the language as it was spoken by Pericles, he 
must seek it in the scenes of Aristophanes where he is not using a 
foreign or affected diction for the purpose of accommodating it to 
some particular or extravagant character. The ancient authors, 
both Greek and Roman, who had all the productions of the Athe- 
nian stage before them, speak of him with such rapture and admi- 
ration, as to give him a decided preference before all other comic 
poets, with an exception, as I believe, of Plutarch only, who brings 
him into comparison with Menander, and, after discussing their 
different pretensions, decides peremptorily for Menander. 

The drama of Aristophanes is of a mixed species ; sometimes 
personal, at other times inclining to parody : he varies and accom- 
modates his style to his subject and the speakers on the scene ; on 
some occasions it is elevated, grave, sublime, and polished, to a 
wonderful degree of brilliancy and beauty ; on others it sinks and 
descends into humble dialogue, provincial rusticity, coarse naked 
obscenity, and even puns and quibbles : the versatility of his genius 
is admirable ; for he gives us every rank and description of men in 
his scenes, and in every one is strictly characteristic. In some 
passages, and frequently in his choruses, he starts out of the or- 



ABISTOPHANES. 241 

dinary province of comedy into the loftiest flights of poetry, and in 
these I doubt if iEschylus or Pindar have surpassed him : in senti- 
ment and good sense he is not inferior to Euripides, and in the 
acuteness of his criticisms equalled by none : in the general purport 
of his moral he seldom, if ever, fails ; but he works occasionally 
with unclean tools, and, like Juvenal in the lower ages, chastises 
vice by an open exposure of its turpitude, offending the ear, whilst 
he aims to mend the heart. This habit of plain speaking was the 
fashion of the times he wrote in, and the audience demanded and 
would have it. If we cannot entirely defend the indelicacy of his 
muse, we cannot deny but that a great share of the blame rests 
with the spectators : a dramatic poet cannot model his audience, 
but in a certain degree must of necessity conform to their taste and 
humour : it can be proved that Aristophanes himself laments the 
hard task imposed upon him of gratifying the public at the expense 
of decency ; but with the example of the poet Cratinus before his 
eyes, who was driven from the stage because he scrupled to amuse 
the public ear with tawdry jests, it is not to be wondered at, if an 
author, emulous of applause, should fall in with the wishes of the 
theatre, unbecoming as they were. 

His wit is of various kinds : much is of a general and permanent 
stamp ; much is local, personal, and untransferable to posterity : no 
author still retains so many brilliant passages, yet none has suffered 
such injury by the depredations of time : of his powers in ridicule 
and humour, whether of character or dialogue, there might be no 
end to instances : if Plautus gives us the model of Epicharmus, he 
does not equal him ; and if Terence translates Menander, his 
original does not approach him in these particulars : I doubt if the 
sum total of wit and humour in all their stage-lackeys would toge- 
ther balance the single character of Cario in the Plutus. His satire, 
whether levelled against the vices and follies of the people at large, 
against the corruption of the demagogues, the turpitude and chica- 
nery of the philosophers, or the arrogant self-sufficiency of the tragic 
poets, cuts with an edge that penetrates the character, and leaves 
no shelter for either ignorance or criminality. 

Aristophanes was author of above sixty comedies : the comedies 
which remain are not edited according to the order of time in which 
they were produced: there is reason to think that The Achar- 
nians was the first of its author ; it was acted in the last year of 

K 



242 HAND-BOOK OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 

Olymp. lxxxv. when the edict was reversed which prohibited the 
representation of comedies ; and it is said that Aristophanes brought 
it out in the name of Callistratus the comedian. 

It is generally supposed that we owe the remains of Aristo- 
phanes to St. Chrysostom, who happily rescued this valuable though 
small portion of his favourite author from his more scrupulous 
Christian contemporaries, whose zeal was too fatally successful in 
destroying every other comic author, out of a very numerous col- 
lection, of which no one entire scene now remains. 



THE END. 



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PUBLISHED BY 




LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS 




39 Paternoster Row, London. 




CLASSIFIED INDEX 




Agriculture and Rural Affairs. 


Morris's Life of Becket . 
Mountain's (Col.) Memoirs . 


17 

. 17 


Bayldon on "Valuing Bents, &c. . . 6 


Parry's (Admiral) Memoirs . 
Russell's Memoirs of Moore . 


. 18 
17 


" on Road Legislation 




b 


*' (Dr.) Life of Mezzofanti . 


. 20 


Caird's Prairie Faiming 

Cecil's Stud Farm . 

Hoskyns's Talpa .... 

Loudon's Agriculture 

Low's Elements of Agriculture 

Morton on Landed Estates 




8 
8 
11 
14 
14 
17 


SchimmelPenninck's (Mrs.) Life . 
Southey's Life of Wesley 
Stephen's Ecclesiastical' Biography 
Strickland's Queens of England . 
Sydney Smith's Memoirs 
Symonds's (Admiral) Memoirs 


. 20 

21 

. 22 

22 
21 
22 j 




Taylor's Loyola .... 


. 22 


Arts, Manufactures, and Archi- 


" Wesley .... 
Uwins's Memoirs and Correspondence 


22 
23 ! 


tecture. 


Waterton's Autobiography and Essays 


U 


Brande's Dictionary of Science, &c. 
" Organic Chemistry . 


6 
6 


Books of General Utility. 




Cresy's Civil Engineering 


8 


Acton's Bread-Book 


5 1 


Fairbairn's Information for Engineers 


9 


*• Cookery-Book 


5 ! 


Gwilt's Encyclopaedia of Architecture 


10 


Black's Treatise on Brewing . 


6 ! 


Harford's Plates from M. Angelo . 


10 


Cabinet Gazetteer .... 


8 i 


Humphreys's Parables Illuminated 


12 


" Lawyer ..... 


"> ! 


Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art 


13 


Cust's Invalid's Own Book 


9 , 


" Commonplace-Book 


13 


Hints on Etiquette .... 


11 i 


Konig's Pictorial Life of Luther . 


10 


Hudson's Executor's Guide . 


12 


Loudon's Rural Architecture . 


14 


" on Making Wills 


12 


Mac Dougall's Campaigns of Hannibal 


15 


Kesteven's Domestic Medicine 


13 


*' Theory of War 


15 


Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia 


13 


Moseley's Engineering . 


17 


Loudon's Lady's Country Companion 


14 i 


Piesse's Art of Perfumery 


18 


Maunder's Treasury of Knowledge 


. 16 ! 


Richaidson's Art of Horsemanship 


. 19 


" Biographical Treasury 


16 ! 


Scoffern on Projectiles, &c. . 


20 


" Geographical Treasury 


16 j 


Steam Engine, by the Artisan Club 


6 


" Scientific Treasury 


15 


Ure's Dictionary of Arts, &c. . 


23 


" Treasury of History 


16 




" Natural History . 


16 j 


Biography. 


Piesse's Art of Peifumery 
Pitt's How to Brew Good Beer 


18 ! 

18 ! 


Arago's Lives of Scientific Men . . 5 


Pocket and the Stud 


ii ! 


Baillie's Memoir of Bate 




. 6 


Pycroft's English Reading 


in i 


Brialmont's Wellington . . 




6 


Rich's Companion to Latin Dictionary 


19 ! 


Bunsen's Hippolytus 




7 


Richardson's Art of Horsemanship 


19 1 


Bunting's (Dr.) Life 




7 


Riddle's Latin Dictionaries . 


19 j 


Crosse's (Andrew) Memorials 




8 


Roget's English Thesaurus . 


20 1 


Gleig's Essays .... 




10 


Rowton's Debater 


20 j 


Green's Princesses of England 




10 


Short Whist 


21 


Harford's Life of Michael Angelo 




10 


Simpson's Handbook of Dining . 


21 


Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia 




13 


Thomson's Interest Tables 


22 


Marshman's Life of Carey, Marshman 




Webster's Domestic Economy 


24 


and Ward ..... 


15 
16 


Willich's Popular Tables 
Wilmot's Blackstone . 


24 

24 


Maunder's Biographical Treasury 



CLASSIFIED INDEX TO CATALOGUE. 



Botany and Gardening-. 

Hassan's British Freshwater Alga 
ritish Flora . 

" Guide to Kcw Gardena . 
Lindley's Introduction to Botany . 

" Synopsis of the British Flora 

" Theory of Horti< ulture . 
Loudon's Hortua Britannicua 

u Amati ui Gardener . 

" Treea and Shrubs . 

" Gardening 

" Planta . 
Pereira's Materia Medica 

■ Base Vmafieur'a Guide . 
Watson's C\ bole Britannica 
Wilson's British Mosses . 

Chronology. 

Brewer's Historical Atlas : . . .6 

Bunsen's Ancient Egypt . . . 7 

Haydn's Beatson's Index . . .11 

Jaquemet's Two Chronologies . . 13 

Commerce and Mercantile 
Affairs. 

Gilbart's Losic of Banking . . . 10 
" Treatise on Banking . . 10 
Lorimer's Youn? Master Mariner . . 14 
M'Culloch's Commerce and Navigation 15 
Thomson's Interest Tables . . .22 
Tooke's History of Prices . .22 

Criticism, History, and Memoirs. 



Brewer's Historical Atlas 
Bunsen's Ancient Egypt 

" Hippolytus' 

Chapman's Gustavus Adolphus 
Connolly's Sappers and Miners 
Conybeare and Howson's St. Paul 
Crowe's History of France 
Fischer's Francis Bacon . 
Frazer's Letters during the Peninsular 

and "Waterloo Campaigns . 

Gleig's Essays 

Gurney's Historical Sketches 
Haywa'rd's Essays . 
Herschel's Essays and Addresses . 
Jeffrey's (Lord) Contributions 
Kemb'ie's Anglo-Saxons . 
Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia 
Macaulay's Critical and Hist. Essays 
" History of England . 

" Speeches 

Mackintosh's Miscellaneous Works 
" History of England . 

M'Culloch's Geographical Dictionary 
Maunder's Treasury of History 
Merivale's History of Rome . 
" Roman Republic . 
Milner's Churcli History . 
Moore's (Thomas) Memoirs, &c. . 
Mures Greek Literature 
Normanby's Year of Revolution . 

Perry's Franks 

Porter's Knights of Malta 
R.aikes's Journal ... . . 
Riddle's Latin Dictionaries . 
Rogers's Essays from Edinb. Review 

" (Sara.) Recollections 

Roget's English Thesaurus . 
SchimmelPenninck's Memoirs of Port 

Royal 



SchimmelPenninck'sPi inciples of Beauty 
Schmitz's History of Greece . 

Southey'6 Doctor 

Stephen's Ecclesiastical Biography 

" Lectures on French History . 

Sydney Smith's Work--' .... 

'"' Lectures 

" Memoirs 

Taylor's Loyola 22 

" Wesley 22 

Thirl wall's History of Greece . . . 22 

Turner's Anglo-Saxons .... 23 

Uwins's Memoirs and Letters . . 23 
"Vehse's Austrian Court . . . .23 
Wade's England's Greatness . . .23 

Young's Christ of History . . . 24 

Geography and Atlases. 

Brewer's Historical Atlas ... 6 

Butler's Geography and Atlases . 7 
Cabinet Gazetteer ... .8 
Johnston's General Gazetteer . .13 

M'Culloch's Geographical Dictionary . 15 

Maunder's Treasury of Geography . 16 

Murray's Encyclopaedia of Geography . 17 

Sharp's British Gazetteer . ' . 21 

Juvenile Books. 

Amy Herbert -, 20 

Cleve Hall 20 

Earl's Daughter (The) .... 20 

Experience of Life 20 

Gertrude 20 

Howitt's Boy's Country Book . . 12 

" (Mary) Children's Year . . 12 

Ivors 20 

Katharine Ashton 20 

Laneton Parsonage .... 20 
Margaret Percival ..... 20 
Piesse's Chymical, Natural, and Phy- 
sical Mag'ic 18 

Pycroft's Collegian's Guidft . . .19 



Medicine, Surgery, &c. 

Brodie's Psychological Inquiries . 
Bull's Hints to Mothers . 

" Management of Children 

" Work on Blindness 
Copland's Dictionary of Medicine . 
Cust's Invalid's Own Book 
Holland's Mental Physiology . 

" Medical Notes and Reflections 
Kesteven's Domestic Medicine 
Pereira's Materia Medica 
Richardson's Cold-water Cure . 
Spencer's Principles of Psychology 
Todd's Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and 

Physiology 

Miscellaneous Literature. 

Bacon's (Lord) Works .... 

Defence of Eclipse of Faith . 

De Fonblanque on Army Administration 

Eclipse of Faith 

Greathed's Letters from Delhi 
Greyson's Select Correspondence . 
Gurney's Evening Recreations 
Hassall's Adulterations Detected, &c. . 
Haydn's Book of Dignities 
Holland's Mental Physiology 



CLASSIFIED INDEX 


TO CATALOGUE. 


3 


Hooker's Kew Guide 


11 


Calvert's Wife's Manual . 


8 


Howitt's Rural Lite of England 


12 


Catz and Far lie's Moral Emblems 


8 


'• Visits to Remarkable Places 


12 


Cleve Hall .... 


20 


Jameson's Commonplace-Book 


13 


Conybeare and Howson's St. Paul 


8 


Jeffrey's (Lord) Essays . 


13 


Cotton's Instructions in Christianity 


8 


Last of the Old Squires . 


18 


Dale's Domestic Liturgy 


9 


Letters of a Betrothed 


13 


Defence of Eclipse of Faith . 


9 


Macaulay's Critical and Hist. Essays 


14 


Earl's Daughter (The) . 


20 


" Speeches 


14 


Eclipse of Faith 


9 


Mackintosh's Miscellaneous Works 


15 


Englishman's Greek Concordance 


9 


Martineau's Miscellanies 


15 


" Heb. & Chald. Concord. 


9 


Pycroft's English Reading 


19 


Experience (The) of Life 


20 


Rich's Companion to Latin Dictionary 


19 


Gertrude . 


20 


Riddle's Latin Dictionaries . 


19 


Harrison's Light of the Forge 


10 


Rowton's Debater 


20 


Home's Introduction to Scriptures 


11 


Sir Roger De Coverley 


21 


" Abridgment of ditto • 


11 


Smith's (Rev. Sydney) Works 


21 


Hue's Christianity in China . 


12 


Southey's Doctor, &c 


21 


Humphreys's Parables Illuminated 


12 


Spencer's Essays .... 


21 


Ivors, by the Author of Amy Herbert . 


20 


Stephen's Essays .... 


22 


Jameson's Saints and Martyrs 


13 


Stow's Training System . 


22 


" Monastic Legends 


13 


Thomson's Laws of Thought 


22 


" Legends of the Madonna 


13 


Trevelvan on the Native Languages o] 




" on Female Employment . 


12 


India 


22 


Jeremy Taylor's Works . 


13 


Yonge's English-Greek Lexicon . 


24 


Katharine Ashton 


20 


" Latin Gradus 


24 


Konig's Pictorial Life of Luther 


10 


Zumpt's Latin Grammar 


. 24 


Laneton Parsonage 


20 






Letters to my Unknown Friends . 


13 


Natural History in general. 




Lyra Germanica 

Maguire's Rome 


7 
15 






Margaret Percival 


20 


Agassiz on Classification 


. 5 


Marshman's Serampore Mission . 


15 


Catlow's Popular Conchology 


. 8 


Martineau's Christian Life 


15 


Ephemera's Book of the Salmon . 


. 9 


" Hymns . 
" Studies of Christianity . 
Merivale's Christian Records 


15 


Garratt's Marvels of Instinct . 


. 10 


15 


Gosse's Natural History of Jamaica 


. 10 


16 


Ivirby and Spence's Entomology . 


. 13 


Milner's Church of Christ 


16 


Lee's* Elements of Natural History 


. 13 


Moore on the Use of the Body 


17 


Maunder's Natural History . 


. 16 


" " Soul and Body . . 


16 


Morris's Anecdotes in Natural Histor 1 


r " 


" 's Man and his Motives 


17 


Quatrefages' Rambles of a Naturalist 


. 19 


Morning Clouds 


17 


Stcnehenge on the Dog . 


. 22 


Neale's Closing Scene . 


17 


Turton's Shells of the British Islands 


. 23 


Pattison's Earth and Word 


18 


Van der Hoeven's Handbook of Zoolog 


f 23 


Powell's Christianity without Judaism 


19 


Waterton's Essays on Natural History 


. 24 


„ Order of Nature . - 


19 


Youatt's The Dog 


. 24 


Readings for Lent .... 


20 


" The Horse 


. 24 


' f Confirmation 
Robinson's Lexicon to the Greek Tes- 


20 


One- Volume Encyclopedias 


and 


tament 

Self-Examination for Confirmation 


19 
20 


Dictionaries. 




Sewell's History of the Early Church 


20 






Sinclair's Journey of Life 


21 


Blaine's Rural Sports ... 


. 6 


Smith's (Sydney) Moral Philosophy 


21 


Brande's Science, Literature, and Art 


. 6 


" (G.) Wesleyan Methodism 


21 


Copland's Dictionary of Medicine 


. 8 


" (J.) Shipwreck of St. Paul 


21 


Cresy's Civil Engineering 


. 8 


Southey's Life of Wesley 


21 


Gwilt's Architecture 


. 10 


Stephen's Ecclesiastical" Biography 


22 


Johnston's Geographical Dictionary 


. 13 


Taylor's Loyola 


22 


Loudon's Agriculture 


. 14 


" Wesley .... 


22 


" Rural Architecture 


. 14 


Theologia Germanica 


7 


" Gardening 


. 14 


Thumb Bible (The) . .. . 


22 


" Plants .... 


. 14 


Young's Christ of History 


24 


" Trees and Shrubs . 


. 14 


" Mystery .... 


. 24 


M'Culloch's Geographical Dictionary 


. 15 






" Dictionary of Commerce 


. 15 






Murray's Encyclopaedia of Geography 
Sharp's British Gazetteer 
"Ore's Dictionary of Arts, &c. . 


. 17 






. 21 
. 23 


Poetry and the Drama. 




Webster's Domestic Economy 


. 24 


Aikin's (Dr.") British Poets . 


5 






Arnold's Merope .... 


5 


Religions and Moral Works. 




" Poems .... 
Baillie's (Joanna) Poetical Works . 


5 


Afternoon of Life .... 


5 


Calvert's Wife's Manual . 


8 


Amy Herbert 


. 20 


Goldsmith's Poems, illustrated 


10 


Bloomfield's Greek Testament 


. 6 


L. E. L,'s Poetical Works 


14 


Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress 
1 


• 7 


Linwood's Anthologia Oxoniensis 


14 



4 CLASSIFIED INDEX TO CATALOGUE. 


Lyra Germanica 

Macaulay'l Lavs of Ancient Rome 
Mac Donald's within and Without 


7 


Stable Talk and Table Talk . 


. 10 


15 


Stonehenge on the Dog 


. 22 


15 


'* " Greyhound 


. 22 


" Poems 


15 


The Stud, for PracticalPurposes 


. 11 


Montgomery's Poetical Works 




16 




Moore's Poetical Works . 




17 






Selections illustrated) 
" Lalla Uookh 




17 
17 


Veterinary Medicine, &c. 




u Irish Melodies . 




17 






** National Melodies 




17 


Cecil's Stable Practice . 


. 8 


*' Sacred Songs [with Music 


) 


17 


" Stud Farm 


. 8 


" Songs and Ballads 




17 


Hunt's Horse and his Master 


. 12 


Shakspeare, Dy Bowdler . 




20 


Hunting-Field (The) 


. 11 


• Souther's Poetical Works 




21 


Miles's Horse-Shoeing . 


. 16 


Thomson's Seasons, illustrated 




22 


" on the Horse's Foot 


. 16 






Pocket and the Stud 


. 11 






Practical Horsemanship . 


. 11 


The Sciences in general and 


Richardson's Horsemanship 
Stable Talk and Table Talk . 


. 19 
. 10 


Mathematics. 




Stonehenge on the Dog . 
Stud (The) .... 
Youatt's The Dog . 


. 22 

. 11 






. 24 


Arago's Meteorological Essays 


5 


" The Horse 


. 21 


"~ Popular Astronomy . 


5 






Bourne on the Steam Engine 


6 






" 's Catechism of Steam-Engine 
Boyd's Naval Cadet's Manual 


6 
6 


Voyages and Travels. 




Brande's Dictionary of Science, &c. 


6 






" Lectures on Organic Chemistr; 


t 6 


Baker's Wanderings in Ceylon 


. 5 


Conington's Chemical Analysis 


8 


Barth's African Travels . 


. 5 


Cresy's Civil Engineering 


8 


Burton's East Africa 


. 7 


De la Rive's Electricity . 


9 


tl Medina and Mecca . 


. 7 


Grove's Correlation of Physical Forces 


10 


Domenech's Deserts of North Am 


erica 9 


Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy . 


11 


" Texas and Mexico 


. 9 


Holland's Mental Physiology . 


11 


First Impressions of the New Woi 


Id . 9 


Humboldt's Aspects of Nature 


12 


Forester's Sardinia and Corsica 


. 10 


" Cosmos 


12 


Hinchliff's Travels in the Alps 


. 11 


Hunt on Light 


12 


Howitt's Art-Student in Munich 


. 12 


Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia 


13 


" (W.> Victoria . 


. 12 


Marcet's (Mrs.) Conversations 


IS 


Hue's Chinese Empire 


. 12 


Morell's Elements of Psychology . 


17 


Hudson and Kennedy's Mont Blan 


c . 12 


Moseley's Engineering and Architecture 


17 


Humboldt's Aspects of Nature 


. 12 


Ogilvie's Master-Builder's Plan 


18 


Hutchinson's Western Africa 


. 12 


Owen's Lectures on Comp. Anatomy 


18 


Kane's Wanderings of an Artist 


. 13 


Pereira on Polarised Light 


18 


Lady's Tour round Monte Rosa 


. 13 


Peschel's Elements of Physics 


18 


M'Clure's North-West Passage 


. 18 


Phillips's Mineralogy 


18 


Mac Dougall's Voyage of the Reso 


xite . 15 


" Guide to Geology . 


. 18 


M in turn's New York to Delhi 


. 16 


Powell's Unity of Worlds 


. 19 


Mollhausen's Journey to the Pacifl 


c . 16 


" Christianity without Judaisrr 


t 19 


Osborn's Quedah 


. 18 


" Order of Nature 


If) 


Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers . 


. JS 


Smee's Electro-Metallurgy 


. 21 


Scherzer's Central America 


. 20 


Steam-Engine, by the Artisan Club 


6 


Senior's Journal in Turkey and G 


reece 20 


Webb's CelestialObjects for Commor 


L 


Snow's Tierra del Fuego . 


21 


Telescopes 


24 


Tennent's Ceylon . 


". 22 






Von Tempsky's Mexico and Guate 


mala 23 






Wanderings in the Land of Ham 


. 24 


Rural Sports. 




W r eld's Vacations in Ireland . 
" Pyrenees, West and East 


. 24 
. 24 






" United States and Canada 


. 24 


Baker's Rifle and Hound in Ceylon 


. 5 






Blaine's Dictionary of Sports . 


. 6 






Cecil's Stable Practice 

" Stud Farm .... 


8 
8 


Works of Fiction. 




Davy's Fishing Excursions, 2 Series 


9 






Ephemera on Angling . 


9 


Connolly's Romance of the Ranks 


. 8 


** Book of the Salmon 


9 


Cruikshank's Falstaff 


. 9 


Freeman and Salvin's Falconry 


10 


Howitt's Tallangetta 


. 12 


Hawker's Young Sportsman . 


11 


Mildred Norman 


. 16 


The Hunting-Field .... 


11 


Moore's Epicurean . 


. 17 


Idle's Hints on Shooting 


. 12 


Sewell's Ursula 


. 20 


Pocket and the Stud . . 


11 


Sir Roger De Coverley 


. 21 


Practical Horsemanship . 


11 


Sketches (The), Three Tales . 


. 21 


Pycroft's Cricket-Field . 


19 


Southey's Doctor, &c. 


. 21 


Richardson's Horsemanship . 


19 


Trollope's Barchester Towers . 


. 23 


Ronalds's Fly-Fisher's Entomology 


20 


" Warden 


. . 23 



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Joanna Baillie's Dramatic and 

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